


When The Full Moon Rises

by Dragoncounsel121



Category: GOT7
Genre: Aftercare, Anal Sex, Bestiality, Knotting, M/M, Overstimulation, PWP, Rimming, Smut, Tentacles, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2019-12-18 05:41:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18243491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragoncounsel121/pseuds/Dragoncounsel121
Summary: What happens when you don't go home before the full moon rises.Alternatively, what happens when you start out writing smut but then magical idols was too cute a concept to leave alone.





	1. The friendly neighborhood Sorcerer

**Author's Note:**

> Be warned ye of temperate tastes, this is your last chance to turn back NOW

It was a little known secret that Jinyoung kept a sharp eye on his moon charts, regardless of day, time or weather. He never mentioned it to anyone, and no one ever mentioned it to him, but there was a tacit understanding amongst all his customers that if Jinyoung told you something about said moon cycles, you _listened_ , and if the sorcerer had his moon charts out, absolutely no one was to disturb him.

Not that they would want to.  
  
Jinyoung's usually polite and detached expression warped when he was looking at moon charts, his eyes taking on a gleam that was more animal than human, his gentle half smile morphing into a sinuous feline thing that sharpened his beauty. It was as hypnotic as it was terrifying, and inevitably it made people talk. But no matter how many hissing whispers of human sacrifice in the woods, of being raised by cackling fairies, of mating with beasts, Jinyoung never retaliated, treating all his customers with a quaint professional warmth that usually shut them up for just about long enough until they need their prescription refilled.  
  
They weren't _entirely_ off track, he supposed.

Jinyoung chuckled softly as he padded through the shadowy woods on the outskirts of town, his footsteps muffled by pine needles. The moon overhead has just past its zenith. He had just enough time to prepare everything.

The little pond was as smooth as glass, reflecting the full disk of the moon in the water. Jinyoung quickly put out his lantern and disrobed, his body barely disturbing the dark surface as he slipped in. The water gently enveloped him, a cool escape from the stifling summer, still choking the air so many hours after the sun had gone down. Jinyoung washed himself quickly but thoroughly, letting his own magic be submerged in the living magic of nature. After bathing and swimming all he liked, Jinyoung pulled himself onto a large warm rock, splaying himself over the water-smoothed stone. Then he began to chant.

The water stirred beneath his perch, gaining direction and form, congealing together to form something that was almost solid.

With a shaky breath, he spread his legs. Tendrils of water wrapped around them holding him open and Jinyoung kept chanting kept coaxing more of their like from the pond, bidding them to tease at his sensitive inner thigh and even brushing against his slowly hardening member. One branched into many smaller tendrils whose blunt heads began to press and tug at his puckered entrance.  
  
With a small breathy laugh, Jinyoung pushed himself onto them, rolling his hips as the let the first few pierce the tight ring. They opened him up with by bit as Jinyoung called more water into them, and forced more tendrils inside amidst the first few. The twined together inside him, a roiling mass of cool little feelers stroking every crevice inside his body. Jinyoung writhed under their touch, keening high and loud. Another water tendril wrapped itself around his hard cock, a cool, refreshing touch against the feverish organ. Biting his lip so he could better concentrate, Jinyoung speaks through his own gasps and moans, coaxing yet another tiny tendril of water to break off from the main one around his cock, to delicately tease around the weeping head before slowly dipping into his slit.

The drastic temperature change between the cool water and his body temperature in the most sensitive possible place made Jinyoung gasp and thrash in his self-imposed bonds. Electric pleasure dance on the ends of his nerves, making his grasp on his own magic more and more erratic, sometimes fucking him hard until his insides felt distended and bruised, sometimes barely lapping at him, leaving him whining in desperation.

It wasn't enough. It just wasn't enough.

when Jinyoung came it was choked off and unsatisfying, the translucent white liquid dribbling weakly from a still half hard cock.

But that was fine for now. Jinyoung groaned and he let the water tendrils drop, only keeping the single thin one still delicately teasing his oversensitive slit, focusing on the addictive shocks of pleasure almost sharp enough to be called pain. It kept his body sensitive and needy, just what he needed.

Out of sight, a howl echoes through the woods, and Jinyoung almost laughed, knowing that he's been discovered. Not a minute later a large sleek form broke from the dark tree line. Its smooth grey fur shone silver in the moonlight as it barreled straight across the pond in wild abandon to pin Jinyoung to his rock with sharp claws.

On full moons, Jaebeom never came to Jinyoung fully human or fully transformed, always wavering somewhere between the two. Tonight was a good balance. His sharp claws were attached to mannish hands rather than paws and his face was human, but his neck was still enveloped by a proud crest of silky grey fur. His powerful tail swept through the water, splashing the sorcerer before firmly curling around Jinyoung's ankle. His trip across the pond had not managed to wash off all the blood and the traces of red still dripped from his fangs.

Jinyoung didn't mind. He laughed softly and pulled Jaebeom down for a kiss, licking away the metallic taste between the dangerous fangs, choking himself on Jaebeom's much longer wolf's tongue. Claws dug into his hips just barely short of breaking skin and Jaebeom shoved his long curved member into Jinyoung's open wet hole in a single thrust. Beneath him, Jinyoung whimpered softly, as his body was forced to accommodate the length and girth of the unforgiving shaft.

For just a moment, Jaebeom paused and let Jinyoung cling to him, burrowing his face into the soft fur of his crest. His throat rumbled with soft comforting noises as he nuzzled at Jinyoung's face and hair, soft tongue lapping comfortingly at the sorcerer's cheek.  
  
It was sweet really, and Jinyoung let himself melt into the attention. But it wasn't what he needed. As soon as he adjusted, Jinyoung bit his bottom lip against the burn and rolled his hips against the throbbing cock in his body. _Once_. _Twice_.

Jaebeom snarled and thrust in savagely wrangling a mangled cry from Jinyoung's throat. They settle into a brutal pace, any gentleness from before evaporating into thin air. Jinyoung shivered in Jaebeom's sharp grip as his body was forced to take and take. It was almost too much. Jaebeom's cock fucked him harder and faster than the water tendrils ever did. The single remaining tendril stroked his red dripping member from the inside only helping to drive him more insane, until he could barely keep a grasp on it in the corner of his mind. Jaebeom's teeth dug into his shoulders, his collar, everywhere, heightening the electric pleasure with shocks of pain.

It didn't take long.

Jinyoung thrashed as he finally reached his peak, cumming so hard his vision went white. Forced to his limit, Jinyoung let everything go, drowning in the sensations as they crashed over him. He buried his head into Jaebeom's soft fur crest, nearly suffocating himself but he didn't care. He wasn't given the time to.

Jaebeom hadn't even slowed down, still thrusting with wild abandon into Jinyoung's oversensitive overwhelmed body. The line of pleasure and pain blurred together, piled up on each other until there was so much. So much.

So good.

Just when Jinyoung thought he was going to give out, he felt it. The thick base of Jaebeom's cock just beginning to swell into a hard knot. Jaebeom's thrusts have become slower, more careful as he ground it into Jinyoung's ass.

It was big, a stretch even for Jinyoung's loose, used hole. But Jaebeom wanted it, so Jinyoung wanted it. Steadily, gradually, it breached his body and nudged its way inside. With it all the way in, Jaebeom was so deep that Jinyoung's addled brain briefly thought he felt it pushing into his belly. He was unbelievably full, the growing knot stretching his ass to form around his shape. With every shallow grind, it rubbed against his abused pleasure spot, and Jinyoung couldn't even clench down on it, is too weary, too burnt out to do anything but feel.

And he did. He felt when they were finally, impossibly locked together, the knot swelling to the point where Jaebeom couldn't move anymore without ripping Jinyoung apart with him. He felt Jaebeom nuzzling into his throat, his hair, his shoulders to comfort him. He felt when the throbbing knot tensed inside him and Jaebeom came for the first time, flooding Jinyoung's body with unbearable heat. He felt how big the knot still was even though his belly was bloated and full with how much cum Jaebeom had just pumped in, and he could feel how much more so he would be when Jaebeom fills him again and again until his lovely throbbing knot goes down.

Drowning in so much sensation, Jinyoung blissfully passed out.

 

-o-

 

He woke up to a soft wet tongue licking gently at his back. Jinyoung groaned as the soreness hit him all at once like it always did. Jaebeom's voice rumbled comfortingly as he left his licking and nuzzled against the back of Jinyoung's neck, kissing it with a very much human mouth.

They weren't in the pond anymore, instead deep inside the rock cave that served as Jaebeom's den, lying in a nest of straw covered by animal furs and odds and ends of fabrics Jaebeom's collected throughout the years.

Jinyoung sighed as he turned over to snuggle into a smooth chest and strong warm arms.

"So early," he grumbled until Jaebeom placated him by tracing the shell of his ear with a warm wet tongue.

"I didn't say you had to wake up," the older man chided. "Rest, let me finish."

"Nooooo," Jinyoung wrapped his arms around Jaebeom's neck and pulled him back down, "it's cold, Leave it and sleep."

But Jaebeom shook his head and detached himself from Jinyoung arms. Never the less he stayed pressed against Jinyoung even as his mouth sought out all the teeth and claw marks.

"It's really bad this time," he said with a mournful note in his voice, "I went overboard. I should have waited longer."

"Hyung, if I wanted that, I would have gone out later." Jinyoung had to muffle a hiss as his cuts prickled while they healed. "I like the moon lust. I like how quickly you can smell me half-wolf."

Jaebeom clicked his tongue and said nothing, instead, pulling his legs apart and licking up his bruised thighs.

Jinyoung gasped when the wet tongue flirted with his sore entrance. His voice petered out into a moan as Jaebeom's tongue laved hot as wet over the gaping sensitive hole, lapping at the releases still dripping from it.

"Hyung."

"Ssh, you're hurt here too."

Half lucid, Jinyoung could only think hazily of what he felt last night, he moaned again, as Jaebeom thrust his tongue inside and swirled around Jinyoung's sensitive insides. Even the pain of his healing flesh couldn't distract Jinyoung from the arousal coiling languid and warm in the pit of his stomach, and it wasn't long at all until translucent precum dewed at the tip of Jinyoung's hardening cock.

In response, Jaebeom let one hand wander up to gently pet his erection. Jinyoung, torn between rolling into his hand or into his tongue. could only whimper in response, overwhelmed in a different way.

Unlike last night the sensations built slow and warm and sweet, he almost didn't want to cum just to prolong it. But inevitably, orgasm crept up behind him, and this time it washed over him like a warm bath and made tears bead in his eyes.

Jaebeom licked him through it, past it, until Jinyoung shivered in his hands.

When he was done, he stretched out next to Jinyoung again, and Jinyoung wasted no time sinking into his lover's body and kissing him just as slow and warm and sweet.  
  
Curled together, they tumbled back to sleep.


	2. How it all began

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wow, no sex? The fuck is this?

Believe it or not, Jinyoung was once an innocent, unsullied child whose only loves were the half-remembered songs he slapped haphazardly together in his head and the cute fluffy animals who despised him with every ounce of their being. He tried his best, alright? It was work in progress.

  
At least until he came face to face with sharp teeth and fierce golden eyes.

  
Young Jinyoung stumbled back, his basket falling from his hands spilling the carefully picked herbs he'd spent all afternoon gathering.

  
The large grey wolf before him snarled ears flattening along the top of its head but made no move towards him. It couldn't with one leg torn and bleeding in the teeth of a heavy steel trap. Tearing his eyes away Jinyoung got to his feet shaking. He mindlessly scraped the herbs off the forest floor and threw them back into the basket, not caring if the leaves he'd been so careful with earlier got bruised and torn. At some point the wolf had stopped growling, instead, lying down with its great head between its paws. It really wasn't so scary with its mouth closed.

Then a series of desperate wails rang through the forest, followed by gruff human shouts, almost making the boy drop his basket a second time. Whatever they had hunted screamed followed by the thick wet thud of a heavy club. 

Jinyoung made the mistake of looking back at the wolf.

At his waist, the creature whimpered, pupils dilating until its irises had shrunk into a thin gold line around the great dark eyes. And Jinyoung just couldn't leave it alone. The wolf bared its teeth again as Jinyoung ran for where the trap was, thanking the stars that the wolf could not turn to reach it. The trap itself was heavy, it's needle-like maw impossible for Jinyoung to open normally. Instead, he bashed the lock mechanism open with a rock, freeing the spring to pop it open just enough for him to wedge his rock in, and then another and then another.

The human voices were getting closer but the wolf's hind leg was still too big to be dragged out of the trap.

  
Maybe he could shrink its leg? 

Wait.

Why stop at just the leg?

Scrunching his eyes shut and praying that he remembered the words correctly, Jinyoung began to chant, begging the natural magic of the forest to come to him as quickly as they could.

Perhaps, hearing his desperation, nature filled him to the brim with magic, rushing into him and gathering in his words, draining just as quickly when the chant ended and leaving Jinyoung feeling slightly nauseous and light headed.

A desperate yip forced his eyes open. At his feet was a tiny grey cub, it's mangled leg had fallen between the bars of the steel trap. Carefully he picked up the cub, thankfully just small enough to fit inside his short arms and crammed them both into some nearby bramble bushes as the voices came closer. The thorns dug through his clothes but Jinyoung was too scared to notice. He buried his face into the little wolf's gray coat, still reeking with blood and dirt. 

Something barked. Did they have a dog? Please don't have a dog.

Something snuffled closer, disturbing the spiny vines. 

The little wolf's fur bristled beneath his fingers. Please go away. Please don't smell anything and leave. 

The snuffling stopped, just short of touching Jinyoung, he could hear it breathe through the thin layer of leaves and twigs. The something drew back and whined from outside the bush.

Someone shouted. Someone answered.

Jinyoung prayed. Jinyoung ignored them, petting his little wolf quiet. 

He was roused sometime later by a warm tongue lapping at his cheek. His body was sore from curling up for so long and the thorns had eaten through the fabric and dug into the skin. Moving even a little cut red stinging lines into his limbs. Nevertheless, Jinyoung crawled out, wolf cub still in his arms. It was almost dark, and Jinyoung had neither the time nor light to fill up his herb basket. He certainly didn't have the hands for them, so instead, he put as many of the leaves as he could into his wide sleeves and tied them as securely as he could. Then, with the wolf in his arms, he stumbled in the vague direction of home.

  
The next thing he was aware of was warmth. 

With a soft groan, Jinyoung stirred, whimpering as he disturbed his injuries. Although they hurt, they'd been cleaned and bandaged, the herb salve at once uncomfortably sticky and slick on his skin.

  
Blinking awake he found himself bundled inside the thick quilt on his little trundle bed in the kitchen. The fire pit was roaring heartily and his mentor stood in front of it, stirring a pot of bubbling stew that scented the air with the heady smell of meat and wild onions.

His attention was dragged away by a familiar tongue licking a warm wet stripe across his cheek. The wolf!

He rolled over to look at the wolf who'd been deposited - still shrunken - beside him on the trundle bed. Its newly washed fur fluffed out around its neck and the paw that batted gently at his stomach was cotton soft. It's leg too was bandaged and smelling of spicy green herbs. Jinyoung wriggled out of his quilt cocoon just enough to free his arms, wincing as the pulled his cuts. Before he could really reach, the wolf's soft head nuzzled into his shoulder and it let him wrap his arms around it without any complaint, a soothing noise rumbling softly at the back of its throat. 

"Ah, so the other baby is awake too now," Nichkhun said from behind Jinyoung.

"Morning hyung," the young student said meekly, peeking over his shoulder. 

Jinyoung didn't remember much before Nichkhun. He had a mother once who sang to him, probably, but she was long gone, replaced by an ever-smiling sorcerer and meditative chants that made the world bow to his every beck and call.

...and who heavily insisted Jinyoung always call him by hyung. 

...no really. Hyung and nothing else if little Jinyoung knew what was good for him.

"Morning," Nichkun said tooth-rottingly sweet, "are you feeling better?"

  
Warily Jinyoung nodded.

"That's good," the sorcerer nodded taking one of Jinyoung's hands in his own and patting it comforting, "then would you like to tell me precisely why we are housing a wild animal after I explicitly told you I didn't want any pets?"

"...sorry hyung."

  
Really there wasn't much to explain, try as Jinyoung might to answer all of Nichkun's complicated questions. He didn't think it was this much of a problem to pick up animals from traps. The entire time, the wolf shifted closer and closer to Jinyoung until it lay across his lap, glowering up at Nichkun.

In the end, Nichkun decided the wolf would be allowed to stay until it was recovered as long as Jinyoung took care of it himself and didn't reverse the shrinking spell until after he'd taken it back into the forest. Privately, Jinyoung was glad. He wasn't sure he could handle doing any magic in the next few days without puking.

  
The next day Nichkun sat Jinyoung down and explained how to select certain infection fightings herbs and mash them up with a couple of cloves of peeled garlic until they were rendered to a smooth paste. The substance smelled ghastly but Nichkun swore that would be effective on anything less serious than a stab wound. Once the bandages were changed, Nichkun procured a tiny arm splint he still had, left over from when Jinyoung - having been, at one time, a small but incredibly _stupid_ child - believed that he could fly if only he jumped off somewhere high enough. This they whittled down together until it was small enough for the little wolf. After mixing enough dried magnolia bark into the wolf's food to knock out a grown man, Nichkun quickly set the bone and helped Jinyoung lash the leg to the light but sturdy bamboo before the sleeping wolf could feel anything. That night Jinyoung curled up on his trundle bed with his nose buried in warm fur.

Fortunately, even after it woke up and sniffed at the splint, the wolf was smart enough to leave the contraption undisturbed.

Unfortunately, it was a little _too_ smart. 

For the first week or so Jinyoung kept careful, almost smothering watch on the creature. When it whined and scratched at the nearest bit of furniture or the floor, the mage's disciple would carefully gather the wolf in his arms and carry it outside. Sometimes he would even take his chores outside to keep the little wolf company.

  
However, even after the wolf had learned how to hobble along admirably well on it's three good legs, there were still times when it laid down by itself and whimpered for Jinyoung to come to pick it up. Sometimes the wolf didn't even want to be picked up, instead, rolling over on its back or rubbing against Jinyoung's legs to beg for attention. More often than not the soft-hearted sorcerer's disciple - thought he might grumble and scold - would cave and drop his work to pamper the furry little freeloader. Amused at first, Nichkun went from laughing at his gullible disciple to straight up forbidding Jinyoung from picking up the wolf at all to no avail. Inevitably the creature learned that as long as it cried loud enough, long enough, nothing would keep Jinyoung away.

  
When it was clear that it was walking just fine after two months of this ridiculousness, Nichkun practically threw his student and the "grubby little troublemaker" out the door.   
With a sigh, Jinyoung trudged to the forest with the little wolf in his arms. He carried the wolf as far as he could until the road had disappeared and the forest canopy grew dense enough to block out most of the sun. He walked slowly, putting off having to let his friend go. As if it also sensed that something was changing, the little wolf whine softly at the back of its throat and licked Jinyoung's cheek every so often. 

He was going to miss that.

Unlike last time, the natural magic came slowly to Jinyoung as he chanted. It seeped into him as tea does into water, much less violent, much less sickening. It took him a while to build up enough to reverse his shrinking spell, and just when he was starting to get a migraine again, the wolf began to grow.

  
Jinyoung watched with wide eyes, having forgotten in these few months how large the wolf had originally been. On all fours it stood at even height with him and was long enough to curl around his slender body, wrapping him in a warm cocoon of fur. Its long tongue, laved at his face slobbering over more than half of it, and so forceful Jinyoung almost tumbled back. Jinyoung laughed to hide the lump in his throat and threw his arms around the wolf's neck.

  
"Be good, okay?" he said, lower lip trembling. "Don't fall in to anymore traps. When I go home I won't hear you whine anymore. I'll come visit whenever hyung needs herbs, I promise. So don't cause any trouble."

  
The little noises the wolf was used to making in his throat was much lower and denser in his original body, a soft growl that Jinyoung could feel even through its thick pelt. He allowed himself time to snuggle into it.

  
When the owls began to hoot and the voles dug themselves from their burrows, Jinyoung told the wolf to stay and ran all the way back home.


	3. The dubious nature of gift giving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in retrospect, Jinyoung is grateful this didn't go as far as it clearly could have

In his fifteenth summer, Jinyoung found an eviscerated rabbit on his doorstep With a yelp Jinyoung stumbled back, looking quickly away from its wide empty eyes. His mouth was halfway open to shout for his hyung but then he remembered Nichkun wouldn't be back until that evening. Swallowing his disgust, Jinyoung gingerly picked up the poor rabbit and deposited it in a straw basket, weaving a quick incantation to create a small bubble of cool air inside the basket.   
  
Then he drew water from the little inlet they'd dug in the nearby stream and scrubbed the bloodstains from the porch. Still uneasy, he took a handful of talismans with him to check a generous berth around the cottage. Whoever had left the carcass, there was no trace of them. With nothing else to do he settled in the corner with some paper and ink to replace the evil-warding talismans he'd pasted around the property and pray that Nichkun would come home at a sane hour.  
  
The sorcerer blew in on a magical gust just past midnight, scowling and only vaguely red in the face.  
  
" ** _Never_** ," he groused at Jinyoung, "trust a god to hold a proper banquet...not even when they've married a mortal. The pompous bastards haven't had real food for _centuries_ and expect the rest of us to nibble on star shine and moon dew with them. When you go, remember to bring your own food or resign yourself to sipping wine or tea all evening, pretending not to starve!"  
  
"Yes hyung." Jinyoung nodded as he helped his mentor out of his ceremonial silks as Nichkun chattered at him. He'd asked once why Nichkun kept going to these immortal banquets if he hated them so much only to receive an hour long, barely coherent lecture about staying on the good side of local deities. Between that and his mentor clucking like a gossiping hen, he's not sure what was worse.   
  
"You should have seen that poor lout." The sorcerer crowed laying his head on the kitchen table. Thank God Jinyoung hasn't used it at all today. "The fool didn't even realize he was eating nothing! Feasting with his eyes, I guess. I'd pay to see his face when he realizes it's not all heavenly gifts and immortal favors. Celestials aren't worth their trouble, Jinyoungie, don't you ever go and run away with one, you hear? Your Hyung will be heartbroken! He'll beat up your lover without mercy!"  
  
"No, of course not, hyung," Jinyoung said automatically as he folded everything up and tried to remember how to hang the elaborate robes so they wouldn't wrinkle. He really didn't want to press them again. With a sigh, he readjusted them on the hangers until they kind of looked right before hauling Nichkun - left in nothing but his thin lining robes - into the sorcerer's combined bedroom and study. Quietly, he maneuvred his way around half-written chants and ancient looking texts strewn all over. Hopefully, Nichkun would be in a good mood tomorrow, the one blessing of celestial wine was that it never caused hang-overs.  
  
"So, did you do anything today?" Nichkun mumbled into Jinyoung's shoulder. "You're really quiet, weirdly quiet. Where's my fussy brat? Were you actually whisked away by some half-baked god?"  
  
Jinyoung froze. On the one hand, drunk Nichkun was always much more brazen and proactive, and Jinyoung more than knows that drink didn't at all affect his hyung's terrifying magical capabilities. On the other hand, if he somehow sent the older man into a paranoid rage, it was far far beyond Jinyoung's capabilities to actually stop him. Nichkun could very well tear up half the forest and come back with nothing.  
  
Tomorrow it was. "Nothing big, hyung. I worked on my talismans."  
  
"Ah, you're really into that aren't you?" the sorcerer chuckled, "I suppose one of us has to be. Don't neglect the rest of your studies though."  
  
"Yes, hyung," Jinyoung said. He quickly let Nichkun down on his big bed and piled blankets on top of the older man, hoping to retreat to his own bed quickly.  
  
"Jinyoungie." Nichkun's voice stopped him just when he was about to slip through the door.  
  
"Yes, hyung?" He said warily.  
  
"Come here, you're too far away."  
  
"Yes, hyung," Jinyoung sighed and trotted back to where Nichkun had pulled all his blankets into a ball. He didn't expect the surprisingly strong hand that pulled him down into the blanket ball with his inebriated mentor. Although he spent his days fussing with books and medicines, Nichkun had a devil's grip that, try as he might, Jinyoung could never struggle out of.   
  
"Hyung can tell when you're upset, idiot," he mumbled, yawning as he patted Jinyoung's head like a small child. "What's wrong little foxy? Did you get bullied by river sprites again? Does Hyung need to beat them up for you?"  
  
Despite himself, Jinyoung muffled a huff into the pillow. In the first place, it's been years since Nichkun would so much as throw an arm around Jinyoung's shoulders, and he'd abandoned Jinyoung's milk name with said hugs. For two, Jinyoung had been perfectly capable of dealing with uncooperative water sprites - or any kind of sprite - on his own since he was about twelve years old.  
  
But just for tonight, it was nice not to have to go to bed alone.  
  
Jinyoung stirred awake when he felt the ghostly draft of magic rushing past him. As his eyes cleared and it was easier to discern where the magic was flowing, Jinyoung followed the traces and turned over to see Nichkun deep in meditation. The usually chatty sorcerer sat absolutely still in trance, not a hair out of place as if some master artist had painted him on silk. However, the ki gathered in his abdomen was so concentrated, Jinyoung could see it's golden sheen glowing through his body.   
  
When Jinyoung sat up, however, the magic was released, and the supernatural disappeared. But the effects remained, the magic around him is still dense, and it danced along his skin and hair. Nichkun exhaled audibly and finally turned to look at his apprentice.  
  
"So? What actually happened yesterday?"   
  
Jinyoung meekly showed him the rabbits carcass and explained what had happened yesterday, long after it was too late to run across the mountain to fetch Nichkun. As he listened, the sorcerer's eyes grew cold.   
  
"Did you see anyone?" he hissed. Jinyoung shook his head.   
  
With a grimace, Nichkun roughly picked up the rabbit carcass.  
  
"Hyung?" Jinyoung said, his voice shaking.   
  
"Now now, don't be like that. Who is this child who loves eating meat but can't stand the sight of it?" Nichkun said firmly, "Go fetch some wood. If someone is going to take the time to leave this, we might as well make use of it."   
  
Nodding absently Jinyoung filled his arms with logs from the woodpile, hardly minding any splinters that dug into his hands like he usually did. When the kindling was smoking and the fire built, Jinyoung watched as Nichkun threw the entire rabbit carcass into the fire pit, fur and all. The smoke that came off it was greasy and dark, putrid with the acrid scent of burning flesh and hair. Nichkun didn't seem to notice. Instead, he began to chant waving his fingers over the fire until the smoke began to curl in intricate patterns that Jinyoung could only half understand. The furrows in Nichkun's brows only deepen, until eventually he waves the patterns away with his hand and pulls the carcass out of the fire with a metal poker.   
  
Whatever it had been, it was safe now. Fire purifies without exception.   
  
The pelt was unsalvageable, that's a given, but Nichkun pulled the carcass off before the meat could no longer be saved. Mercifully, he cut off the smoking unrecognizable head and tossed it into the garden for fertilizer before handing it off to his disciple. Nevertheless, Jinyoung still had to filter all the air he breathed via magic as he sliced off the burned fur and skin, and scraped off any wood char that had stuck to the meat and chopped it into large chunks. By lunchtime, it was bubbling merrily with hunks of carrot and burdock root, just like any other piece of meat.   
  
Right after their meal Nichkun instructed Jinyoung to stay put inside the cottage and headed into town with a frighteningly blank expression.   
  
When he returned, his mouth was set in a thin hard line, but he didn't say much when Jinyoung asked after him. When nothing happened the next day, it seemed like he was resolved to forget the incident ever happened.   
  
Then a month later, a headless fawn appeared on the doorstep, it's soft red-gold coat still dappled with spots. Jinyoung's face crumpled upon seeing its delicate little legs splayed out limply.  
  
This time Nichkun was scowling as he pulled a white quartz basin from one of the kitchen cabinets and filled it with water. Taking the carcass, he dripped what little blood was left in it into the quartz bowl, once again chanting as he watched the blood swirl around in the water and then settle into the many imperfections of the rough-hewn quartz. Still frowning he at least spared Jinyoung from preparing the carcass, instead, ushering his disciple into the corner to memorize runes. That afternoon, Jinyoung was sent to smoke any venison that Nichkun didn't roast in the fire pit. The fawn skin was put away to be sold along with their medicines the next time they trekked into town.  
  
They because Jinyoung was under no circumstances to head into town alone for the foreseeable future.   
  
"Hyung...hyung what's going on?" he asked as he poked at their meal. It was still hard not to imagine the poor little fawn getting its head ripped off.  
  
Nichkun shook his head. "I don't know, yet. Nothing good."  
  
"...Can I still go to the forest?" Jinyoung asked, only to be leveled by the sharpest glare his mentor has ever aimed at him.   
  
"Your little pet will be fine," the sorcerer huffed at his apprentice, but something in Nichkun seemed to have relaxed just the tiniest bit, "it's a wild animal, it will live as long as it can. You're best off just leaving the thing alone, so it doesn't follow you around and forget how to take care of itself."  
  
Jinyoung frowned at his mentor from across the table.  
  
"What?"  
  
"He gets lonely...He cries if I'm away too long." Jinyoung said, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks.   
  
"It misses all the food you sneak out - don't give me that face, I know where you squirrel things off to. Your hyung slaves away day after day to give you a good life and you filch off half of it to give to some sorry excuse for a mutt that doesn't even watch the house!" Nichkun folded his arms stubbornly across his chest, almost knocking into his empty plate.  
  
"It's because hyung doesn't let him close enough to watch the house." Jinyoung pleaded for what seemed like the thousandth time. "He's really big now, hyung. I don't think he's a normal wolf. I think the forest or some god might have blessed him."   
  
"Or _cursed it_. Can you even feel the difference between yin and yang energies? You can barely read your holy stems if they're not pointed out to you." Nichkun had his mouth open like he wanted to say more, but then he groaned. "But fine, I guess, cursed or not a beast is a beast. If you think it'll be useful, track it over with a fish or something. Maybe it'll catch our little nuisance."  
  
Beaming, Jinyoung had scarfed down the rest of his food and gotten up from the table before Nichkun had even finished speaking, thanking him endlessly. He hurriedly picked a fat salted catfish from the pantry and wrapped it in leaves so he could carry it without dirtying his hands and then packed up his bag with a couple of talismans that he drew himself before running out the door.   
  
"It's still not allowed in the house!" Nichkun shouted after him. Jinyoung pretended not to hear.  
  
Even without his wolf friend, Jinyoung probably would have loved the forest. Nichkun of course, lived not three hundred paces from the tree line but Jinyoung had always felt like even before he'd been abandoned at the sorcerer's door, he must have lived in this very forest. He felt safer beneath its canopy than he ever did in town. It's magic felt natural to him, a passive ebb and flow that scarcely jarred even when Jinyoung added himself to it, and responded all too easily to the young disciple's bidding.  
  
And so did his wolf.  
  
"Little wolf! Little wolf!" He called. "I got you something nice!"  
  
To be honest, Nichkun didn't need to let Jinyoung take any fish. Even if Jinyoung had nothing, even if he kept his mouth shut and just wandered around the forest for an hour or two, the wolf would come snuffling around in time.  
  
This time too he barreled out of the bramble and bowled Jinyoung down into a soft bed of pine needles, tail wagging and tongue slobbering all over Jinyoung's face. Jinyoung screamed with laughter and shoved the giant head away so he could breathe.  
  
"You!" He scolded playfully. "Ah, calm down you monster. You made me drop the fish."  
  
Indeed, the wolf had become a monster, now three times the size of a man and standing chest even with Jinyoung's head. The catfish didn't even whet his teeth when he momentarily rolled of Jinyoung to swallow the treat whole. In the back of his mind, Jinyoung sometimes wondered if maybe he should change the familiar moniker, but it felt wrong. It's not like the wolf was really his to name. Besides even if the wolf understood what he was saying, it would hardly complain. It's not like Nichkun would care.   
  
Licking the residual salt off his chops, the wolf crouched down and shoved his giant snout into Jinyoung's lap, whining for head scratches. The knot in his chest that had been there since the rabbit showed up loosened and Jinyoung laughed as he buried his hands in soft silky fur. "Look at you, aren't you a little too big for this now?"  
  
But the wolf only tilted his head so Jinyoung could get at the tender underside of his neck. Rolling his eyes, the disciple obliged him.  
  
"You're impossible," Jinyoung grumbled without heat, "I can't believe Hyung thinks you might be cursed. You can't possibly have any bit of yin energy in you. Hm, but just to be safe, let's shrink you down a little so hyung doesn't freak out and chase you off for good."  
  
Quietly, Jinyoung began to mutter the familiar incantation for the shrinking spell, now so second nature he barely noticed the magic flowing in and out of him. Moreover, the little wolf - having itself been blessed by the energies of the forest - had learned to replicate the spells Jinyoung often used or practiced in front of him. Between them, they shrunk him down to the size of a small pony between one breath and the next. After a detour to pick wild loquats and chase down a couple field mice, the wolf happily trotted in the direction of the cottage with Jinyoung atop its back.   
  
They came into the yard to see Nichkun outside, eyes red and puffy with hints of tear tracks at the corners of his eyes. The sorcerer was mixing up a large wooden basin of what looked and smelled like birch sap. Lay a number of pale or translucent ingredients ranging from powdered narwhal horn to mashed onions.  
  
"Blood would have stained," Nichkun said stiffly before Jinyoung could say anything. He sniffled grumpily as he left his sap and crossed the yard in five strides to poke at the wolf's snout. "So this is your little feral pet? I suppose he's not bad, hasn't eaten any resentful corpses has he?"  
  
The wolf flattened his ears and wrinkled his snout in the most indignant way Jinyoung had never thought a wolf would be capable of as Nichkun looked at eye to eye and wrenched it's mouth open to check its teeth. With a vigorous shake of his head, the wolf escaped Nichkun's prodding and nosed back into Jinyoung's chest for pets. Jinyoung half cooed half laughed and scratched it behind the ears.  
  
"All these years and it's still spoiled rotten," Nichkun grumbled, "why did I expect any different?"  
  
With another groan, he shooed his disciple off to the other side of the cottage to find a place for their new guard dog. Jinyoung worked quickly, digging a pit he filled with pine needles to make a wolf it's down den just inside the tree line, a task made laughably easy by the wolf taking oddly happily to his new job as a temporary pack horse. By nightfall, a fitting laundry basket had been found to serve for his food and water bowl, christened by the last bit of honeycomb from the honey jar and a couple of the sweet sticky dumplings Jinyoung sometimes made for himself when Nichkun wasn't taking over their kitchen with his alchemical experiments.   
  
However, even when he went to bed that night, Nichkun was still outside painting translucent sap on the walls of the cottage.  
  
It seemed to work. No one seemed to disturb them after that and no more gutted small fluffy animals suspiciously materialized on their veranda. The caveat though was that there were still _animals_ to contend with.  
  
Jinyoung fought to maintain his smile when the bloody mass of bear was dropped just shy of where he was drying the last crop of summer plums. The wolf had been hunting bigger and bigger things lately. So far Jinyoung's had a boar, a mountain lion, and now a full grown black bear eagerly deposited in front of him. the wolf crowded happily and crouched at Jinyoung's feet, smearing reeking blood and dirt together all over his front. Despite the frankly gruesome sight, Jinyoung pet the soft ears where he was least dirty, before pointing to the river inlet with a sharp whistle.   
  
And it became just another part of life.   
  
Although the wolf did not always stay put, sometimes disappearing for days at a time, the cottage seemed to have imprinted onto him in its own way. Jinyoung never went a week before he would see the wolf again, curled up amongst the springy pine needles, sometimes just waiting for Jinyoung to come out for the day.  
  
Eventually, even Nichkun relented, pulling back his town restrictions on Jinyoung. He too began to leave, attending different jobs, further jobs, selling his medicines and strangely enough visiting old acquaintances that Jiyoung had never heard about before. It wasn't a problem, Jinyoung too began to take on more and more responsibilities around the cottage. He knew how to make all of Nichkun's concoctions, had even learned to diagnose conditions in town. In his free time, he tinkered more and more with his talismans and learned to play the elegant zither Nichkun had set up in the corner, sometimes making up little ditties of his own about the strange stories his mentor often complained about.  
  
One such occasion had Nichkun telling him he would only be gone a short time, just over to the next valley, but to prepare the cottage for rough weather. The valley guardian was meeting a challenger, and Divine Beasts rarely paid any mind to the natural disasters they caused the rest of the world in their squabbles. The wolf was gone too, off on some pleasure hunt, possibly looking for the next terrifying creature he can drop in a heap in the yard.   
  
With a sigh, Jinyoung chased their two egg hens into the chicken coop and slapped a talisman on the inside of its door, and pulled in all the laundry. With a couple drops of blood, he activated all the seal arrays in the walls, resigning himself to spending the next two or three days shut inside.   
  
As soon as the arrays were up, the wind began to blow. All night the wind howled and the earth rumbled, the magics of the land responding to the call of their children.

Sequestered in the cottage, Jinyoung came down with a slight fever as something tugged at him, not much, but just enough to mess with magical channels and put him out of sorts. It was maddening, his danger senses screeching at him for hours on end. Despite the cottage being the safest possible place to remain, despite that his wolf would have enough on his paws looking after himself, Jinyoung wanted nothing more than to break for the forest. He wanted to press against the curl of its body - full sized and circling him like a personal fluffy cave, blocking out everything but the warm smell of sun-warmed straw and cedarwood - so he can sort out his meridians before he went permanently insane.   
  
By the second night he was more bedraggled than he had ever been, face and chest burning and vision watery.   
  
And then everything stopped.  
  
The winds stopped crying and the earth stopped trembling. Jinyoung collapsed at his desk, panting as his channels began the painful process of realigning themselves and his meridians stopped the constant pump of energy his body could barely handle. But that, if anything, is even more terrifying, and as gripped as he is by pain, he is even more so by icy quiet fear.   
  
He would not be Nichkun's apprentice if he allowed that to stop him.   
  
With single-minded drive, Jinyoung struggled to his feet, casting off the bear pelt he'd used to prevent his body from succumbing to the weather. Taking care to deactivate the arrays on the door before he threw it open, Jinyoung dragged himself towards the tree line. He needed to be in the forest.   
  
He didn't make it far.   
  
Before he'd left the clearing of their house a creature all of blue scales and twisted white horns plummeted from the sky before him, nearly blocking out the moon...or so he thought. Instead, the air rushed to cradle it's descent, whipping up Jinyoung's robes as it supported the great corpse. The silver he had thought was surely a glimpse of the moon was another great creature, it's punishing jaws closed around the unmoving dragon. Slowly it laid the fierce head at Jinyoung's feet. Then, throwing its head back it belted out an earth-shattering roar that was heart-rendingly familiar.  
  
"Little wolf?" he whispered more to himself than anyone, "Are you my little wolf?"  
  
The great beast looked down at him with eyes that shifted between every possible tint of gold and yes, this was him. This was Jinyoung's precious friend. Halfway to hysterics, Jinyoung threw himself at the creature clinging onto the soft silver fur and burying himself in it. Something slid into place between them, something so irrevocably undeniably right that Jinyoung was dizzy with it, mad laughter bubbling from his chest. Even then he could feel things changing. muscle and bone shifting beneath the soft thick fur, until he was not buried in fur but arms clothed in the loveliest smoothest fur lined silk robes, worn by a boy whose face was lovelier than the gentle moon Jinyoung had thought him to be. The boy wrapped them both against the wind in the silver pelt he wore as an overrobe and curled their bodies together until there was no space left between them.

"Little wolf," Jinyoung cooed as the boy nuzzled into his neck and throat, "my little wolf."

Behind the wolf boy, Jinyoung could see a cavalcade of immortals, riding blessed beasts and magic swords and the very wind itself having tracked both divine beasts from their original battle. Jinyoung closed his eyes and pretended not to notice them.  
  
In retrospect, Jinyoung was insanely lucky that Nichkun had enough seniority - even over an old man whose hair and beard was as white as the cloud he rode on - that he could bully the other sorcerers into leaving his disciple and the wolf boy alone. No matter which way you look at it, Nichkun was several centuries too old to still be called hyung. That said, it didn't feel like it when Nichkun himself approached the new couple with the corners of his eyes twitching and a saccharine sweet smile on his lips.  
  
"Jinyoungie," he said mockingly cheerfully, "remind your hyung what he said about eloping with Celestials?"  
  
"...Technically he's only a divine beast?"  
  
Honestly, he couldn't even complain about all the chores Nichkun piled on him after that, he deserved them.

\- omake -  
  
  
"So...little wolf?...why didn't you tell me about this form?" Jinyoung asked the young man curled in his lap. Being human certainly didn't change the wolf's bad habits. The divine beast whined, tugging at his sleeves.  
  
"Nooooo, name is Jaebeom," the wolf said, "Jinyoung call Jaebeom."  
  
Jinyoung laughed softly and scratched Jaebeom behind his ears to placate him. Jaebeom's wolf features came and went for no reason as far as Jinyoung could tell. For the moment, he had his ears out and what Jinyoung could see of his feet were fluffy paws. He suspected Jaebeom might even have stayed full wolf if Nichkun hadn't forbidden it inside the cottage. "Okay then, Jaebeomie."  
  
"Good," Jaebeom said, turning his head to direct Jinyoung's scratching lower down his hair, "body is new. human shapes....ugh difficult."  
  
And yet he's done so stunningly well.  
  
"Difficult? You killed a nearly ascended dragon hundreds of years older than you. Isn't that more difficult?"  
  
"Jinyoung fault, accept gifts properly!"   
  
Jinyoung's froze, hand abruptly stopping where they are. Jaebeom growled without heat, poking his betrothed until the sorcerer's disciple relented and started stroking again.  
  
"Jaebeomie...your first courting gift...what was it?"  
  
"Snowshoe rabbit," the wolf said nuzzling his face into Jinyoung's stomach, already falling asleep, "milk fawn."  
  
"...of course they were."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucky for Nichkun it's a little too late to be teaching Jaebeom about proper courting gifts


	4. Preparation Screen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tip 1 for dealing with immortals
> 
> Don't fucking WALK what are you, a scrub?

It wasn't _unheard_ _of_ per se for a young sorcerer to happen on the carcass of a divine beast, not even if it was a full one that hadn't been thoroughly stripped of materials. After all, a battle between leviathans of that caliber was dangerous beyond human measure, even the scavengers who flocked to them like crows oftentimes never returned. It wasn't strange for the magical backlash to kill all the poachers hovering foolishly close trying to harvest parts, leaving only the overly young or overly fearful to pick up the windfall. What was unusual was that Jinyoung managed to hold on to his treasure rather than being quickly bullied out of it or straight up killed by magical purveyors far and away stronger than he.   
  
To be fair most young sorcerers weren't riding the winning beast and new resident guardian of the region, the beast who was glaring balefully at anything that so much as moved in its general vicinity. Jinyoung had no idea what Nichkun said to Jaebeom, but the divine wolf seemed to think Jinyoung was going to be assassinated from atop his back.   
  
The hyung in question was having an inordinate amount of fun with his dear disciple's predicament. He hummed to himself as he bobbed up and down beside them, checking all the seals Jinyoung had carefully sewn into his inner muslin robes as if he hadn't taken strict inventory of all the goods multiple times.  
  
"Hyung...is this necessary?" Jinyoung picked at the elaborate silk robes Nichkun had pulled out from who knows where and shrunken to fit him in all places _but_ the long silver embroidered train that _really_ needed it. Sure they felt nice at first, smooth and even warm given the still slightly frosty weather, but despite the thinness of each rosy layer, the sheer volume of fabric present weighed heavily down on Jinyoung's shoulders. "We're going to market."  
  
"We're going to an _Immortal Congregation_ ," the sorcerer said mockingly sweetly as he arranged Jinyoung's silk train to drape elegantly over Jaebeom's hind legs. His own train floated behind him wind magic fanning out like a shimmering green koi fishtail. "To _give_ ** _gifts_**. Don't let anyone hear you mention, business or money. They - and you in turn- are _above_ such _debased earthly things_. And stop complaining, there isn't even any brocade in there, imagine having a couple layers of _that_ on you. This is your first time, you need to look the part or they'll fleece you to the hide. Then how could you possibly afford your heavenly wedding? You've got no connections to speak of outside your poor hyung, no inheritance set aside, no dowry..."  
  
"And because I'm a poor destitute...I'm going to come dripping in silver?" Jinyoung grimaced down at himself. He's never seen this many layers of silk before much less worn it, and his pair was pinned up with enough silver to murder a good sized demon clan. "And why am I wearing even more things than hyung?"  
  
Nichkun leveled him with a flat unimpressed look as he fastened another gilded hairpin into the elaborate knot they'd spent two hours pulling Jinyoung's hair into. "Gold wouldn't have matched your darling fiance."   
  
"Why I am I riding Jaebeom?" Jinyoung sighed as Jaebeom whined beneath him, the vibrations traveling up his legs. folding his long sleeves to uncover his hands, Jinyoung buried his fingers into the soft fur and gave the divine wolf several hard deep scratches until he hummed contently. "Not that I don't like it, Jaebeomie. But why?"  
  
"Are you going to walk in _those_?" Nichkun gestured grumpily down to the delicate slippers made of twisted silver wire that adorned Jinyoung's slender feet, wires that would have no problem digging through his silken stockings and into his feet if he put the slightest amount of pressure on them. "You'd be screaming before the first hour. Immortals don't _walk_ Jinyoung."  
  
"Well, they _should_!"  
  
"Well they _don't_ ," the sorcerer said with stubborn finality, "and since you can't fly very well yet, riding a divine beast will have to suffice. Not many apprentices your age have even seen one, be grateful. This way it looks like you're choosing not to fly."   
  
Jinyoung groaned and flopped down on the back of Jaebeom's neck as Nichkun squawked at him about disturbing his hairdo.  
  
Immortals really were a completely indecipherable bunch.

Jinyoung's heard of these famous congregations. Of course, he has! Even if he'd been raised under a rock with no contact with the magical community, Nichkun would have rambled about them often enough. It was where all the rarest potions ingredients and the most powerful artifacts exchanged hands, where humans with enough power could consort with gods and demons in a cutthroat black market that cornered each of the seven planes of existence.   
  
What he wasn't expecting was the fancy hillside picnic that greeted him when they landed on what had - up until then - been an unobtrusive cloud in the sky.   
  
There were no stalls or shop fronts. No one had any wares on display at all. The immortals present lounged around on their on large colorful tapestries beneath silken canopies or large embroidered parasols heavy with jewels. Some were obscured from wandering eyes by delicate painted screens as they nibbled on brightly colored trifles. Each was waited on hand and foot by scores of servants who ranged from too-perfect replicas of humans to small animals to amorphous masses of energy.   
  
It was too much! It was definitely too much!  
  
Jinyoung jumped when Nichkun's hand planted itself gently at the small of his back.  
  
"Don't shrink," he commanded softly though he kept his head high and only spoke from the corner of his mouth, "this is only a minor congregation, no one here is terribly important. In fact,  _they_ owe _you_ proper courtesy. As my hand-chosen disciple, you probably outrank a good half of them."  
  
"How do I know which ones?" As far as Jinyoung can tell, everyone looked like a lofty lord or lady or god of _something_.   
  
Nichkun only smiled congenially and didn't say. It took him a couple of false starts but it was slowly evident that those who bowed to him first tended to bow lower and those who waited for him to bow made sure to bow less than he did. Nichkun barely dipped his head to anybody.  
  
"Our first stop is someone you might have heard of," Nichkun said beneath his breath before turning and speaking in a louder voice, "Lady Sunmi! It is an honor to see you again."  
  
Unlike the others, Sunmi's umbrella was quite modest, it's beautiful violet canopy only extended enough to shade her body were she to lay stretched out, embroidered with a tasteful scattering of white plum blossoms that seemed to be still alive even as they dripped off the fabric. She had no visible servants. She hardly needed them, anything she wanted flew daintily towards her without prompting and hovered patiently until she plucked them out of the air. Not a single whisper of chanting or signing of hands in her vicinity.  
  
"Well met Master Nichkun," she covered her mouth demurely with her sleeve as she spoke, "and so soon."  
  
For the first and only time that day, Nichkun bowed first. As soon as Jinyoung slipped off of Jaebeom's back to pay his own obeisance, Jaebeom shrank into his beautiful human form to clumsily copy his human companions.   
  
Lady Sunmi was a higher martial god, the Tender of the Loom for the Heavenly Palace. She invited them kindly to fragrant cups of tea brewed from the leaves of immortal peach trees, a light astringent drink that smelled of the faintest most delicate sweetness in the back of the throat. Jinyoung could feel it's power settle into his meridians like the quiet breeze that ruffled at his robes were blowing through him rather than around him.   
  
It made Jaebeom's pupils grow comically large until only a thin golden ring was left of his irises. His head moved around, following every shift of light and flotsam in the wind, and even Jinyoung, mesmerized like he was devouring them with his eyes. Blinking slowly, he leaned over and nudged Jinyoung's jawline with his nose, rumbling happily in the back of his throat. Jinyoung's blood rushed madly into his cheeks.   
  
A sharp spark of energy jabbed into Jinyoung's meridians and he reared back making his robes flutter.  
  
"Jinyoung-ah, why don't you present Lady Sunmi the greeting gift you prepared for her?" Nichkun said sweetly to his flailing apprentice. Jaebeom snarled at Jinyoung's teacher from the corner of his mouth but moved so Jinyoung could dig through the ridiculous amount of layers to his sealing talismans. "Please excuse them, My Lady, my apprentice was only recently engaged. Young lovers, you know."  
  
"Oh you silly magician, you know I do," Sunmi laughed softly, "you attend my feast day every summer."  
  
After a little fussing about Jinyoung finally unearthed a lacquered box from one of this storage talismans. The redwood had a beautiful grain pattern that shone under its polish and perfumed the air with the heady scent of thousand-year-old cherry blossoms. Just the box by itself was already priceless, but nestled inside amongst smooth red silk laid a golden core, the gathered magic that had crystalized inside the dragon's stomach. With shaking hands, Jinyoung set it down carefully in front of the goddess and the scooted back to bow properly.   
  
"Oh, how darling," the goddess cooed at him, "a cherry box to match the little cherry blossom I met today."   
  
Jaebeom hummed in agreement pressing himself warmly into Jinyoung's side and flooding his meridians with his comfortingly cool spiritual energy, making the young disciple collapse back into his robes with and embarrassed squeak. The goddess chuckled and tucked the box inside one of her sleeves where it disappeared into thin air.  
  
"You are already bonded?" she said pleasantly, eyes following the way Jaebeom was practically draped over Jinyoung's lap. Jinyoung didn't think his face could heat up any worse, but he was proven wrong. "It's an interesting choice for a couple so young."  
  
"I...it was incidental, actually," he stuttered, for some reason unable to lie to the exalted goddess, "we sorted it out later but...I hadn't realized the bond was setting in when it happened?"  
  
"Oh? only you?" Her gentle expression had taken a sharper turn and her eyes sparkled with a thousand stars, and Jinyoung had a very very bad feeling about this. Jaebeom huffed into his shoulder - because of course only Jinyoung was thick enough not to have realized when he'd open his meridians to Jaebeom that it was a permanent sort of thing - because of course Jaebeom had been aiming for that exact result for who knows how long.   
  
Off to their side, Nichkun was wearing a terrifying honeyed smiled that said in no uncertain terms that divine beast or no, Jaebeom was going to get killed if he didn't explain himself now.  
  
"Jinyoung accepted and returned courting gifts." The wolf finally opened his mouth. Though his words were still stunted and hesitant, his speech had become much more natural in the past couple of months. "Called Jaebeom in the home forest. Bonds were already open before return. Thought he wanted."  
  
His voice was crisp and clear, at once, like the breeze racing drunk through the forest canopy but also the crystal stream flowing graceful and melancholy over the rocky river bed. This time it was Jinyoung that pressed into him, that pressed their shoulders together and reached up to pet his soft hair and silver pelt, knowing that he could feel through the robes, that were more or less extensions of his corporeal body. WIth his hands and the soft hum at the back of his throat, Jinyoung tried to reassure his contrite future mate that he really hadn't minded.  
  
There was no reason Jaebeom should worry his precious head. Jinyoung hadn't.   
  
Well, mostly hadn't. He was still drowning in shame over his own shitty courting gifts. Who in their right mind sold _their own betrothal_ for _sticky dumplings_ and _salted fish_? Even if Jaebeom hadn't been a divine beast who'd hunted a dragon in his honor, that was just sad! Jinyoung should have gone and gotten him Eternal-Flowering-Rose Wine, or Thousand-Wisdom Pears or something! How could he march off to his own wedding knowing their marriage had been wagered on _salted catfish!_  
  
When they'd both settled down, they looked back to see the Nichkun and Sunmi looking at them with disgusted and laughing faces respectively before turning away and chatting over the pair weren't even there. Instead, Jinyoung and Jaebeom were left to pick at the translucent pearls of moon dew, colorless crystal drops that glimmered with every color as they rolled around and burst inside the mouth into a single crisp sweet breath that refreshed the whole body. Jinyoung didn't even mind that it was insubstantial.   
  
They did not stay long, exchanging farewells shortly afterward. However, when they tose and Jaebeom shifted back into his large wolf form, Lady Sunmi addressed him with a mysterious smile.   
  
"Apprentice Jinyoung, the unsanctioned soul bond...I will remember you."   
  
Not sure what that was about, Jinyoung bowed awkwardly, thanking her before gathering his magic to float himself gently back onto Jaebeom's back. He almost didn't notice Nichkun stir a soft breeze to rearrange his train and drape it back into position.  
  
The rest of the "gift-giving" was a lot more straightforward, with Nichkun only occasionally prodding his young apprentice to point out who in the throng of tents he should at least get to know. Otherwise, Jinyoung was left to make small talk with the flighty immortals by himself and present them with his dragon parts wrapped in silk. During these exchanges, however, he at least tended to get things in return and felt much more like the market haggling he was used to. While the price was still explicitly left out of the conversation, Jinyoung learned to correlate just how "flattered" and "pleased" the given immortal was with his gift with the value of the gift he received in return. Nichkun only had to step in twice to express his "esteem" in his student to nudge the return gifts a bit upwards in value.  
  
Like this he managed to liquidate his very expensive dragon into much smaller, more manageable treasures and magical devices much more easily sold in a common witch market, some of them - like a beautiful set of abalone shell hairpins blessed to preserve youth and good health - he would be keeping for his own use.  
  
He sighed as he collapsed into bed that night, prying his fiance's arms open and settling into them, pulling the divine beast's big fluffy tail up to cuddle like an extra pillow. Jaebeom chuckled, breath warm on the back of his neck. Jinyoung sighed.  
  
They were only halfway there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He's particularly upset about the fish.
> 
> also yes, Sunmi is THAT weaver, from the weaver and the cow herd. Feel free to imagine whichever cow herd you want


	5. For Clan and Kinsmen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Go and do W H A T? 
> 
> AKA the one where culture shock is inevitable

Pure white light and fluffy clouds descended through the thatched roof bearing three incomparably beautiful robed figures in many layers of ethereal, softly floating fabrics.

Jinyoung stared at them blankly and waited for the blinding display to deposit the heavenly guests on the kitchen floor. On his shoulder, Jaebeom- shrunken to the size of a small kitten so he didn’t fall off - coughed up the bit of magic cloud he’d accidentally inhaled.

“Welcome to our home,” he recited dutifully, “I am Master Nichkhun’s current apprentice. Who does this Jinyoung have the pleasure of receiving?”

The head of the group, a girl with an elaborate twisting hairdo dripping in gold and translucent gems nodded at him. None of them made a move to bow. Jinyoung prepared to bow himself when one of the boys suddenly poked the other in the side roughly. 

“BamBam, why!” He jumped back squeaking.

“What are you waiting for?” the instigator hissed beneath his breath. “Introduce us!”

“ _Me_ ? But he’s still _mortal_.” 

“He’s technically head disciple. You’re not even a disciple yet. He totally outranks you.”

“Okay! Okay, sorry.” the boy sighed heavily but scurried forward. Jinyoung barely fought the grin from his face. Nonetheless, the boy bowed deeply from the hips, hands folded properly in front of him. “Greetings Head Apprentice Jinyoung...and Lord...Guardian of Jinhae forest?”

“It’s Jaebeom.” Jinyoung chuckled at the grumbling boy. He was so cute. 

Beside him Jaebeom whined and nipped at one of the hanging pieces of Jinyoung’s elaborate headpiece, jangling the tiny silvers bells clustered on it like flowers.

 “I...see. Lord Jaebeom then. This one is Yugyeom. He is assisting the Loom Tender until such time as he can produce raiment sufficient of an apprentice. These two are my disciple brother and sister, Handmaidens of the Loom Tender, BamBam and Lady Suzy.” 

On his tail, the other boy bowed as well, the turn of his mouth just that little bit smug.  

“Greetings, Assistant Yugyeom,” Jinyoung nodded towards him and then turned to the other two and bowed more deeply. ”Handmaiden BamBam, Handmaiden Suzy. We are honored to have you. Please make yourselves comfortable while I go inform my hyung and prepare your rooms.”

Suzy nodded. “Please make sure that we have sufficient workspace. Our Lady will come subsequently as she will need sufficient accommodations.”

“Of course.”

With a little prodding, Jaebeom hopped off Jinyoung’s shoulder and grew to horse size. With a sign Jinyoung concentrated on the chant running through his mind, taking care to not only lift himself but also all the layers of his robes, ridiculous train and all, onto Jaebeom’s back. 

The two boys didn’t even wait until he was gone before going back to tittering at each other.

“Did he just call Master Nichkun his _hyung_?” 

“Head disciples really are another breed. Suzy-noona, do you…”

Jinyoung didn’t hear more as Jaebeom vaulted over the kitchen railing into freefall while Jinyoung tried to remember which floor Nichkun said he was heading to this morning.

Their little cottage had been pulled and stretched every which way to accommodate the sheer amount of guests who had popped up seemingly out of nowhere.

Jinyoung always thought his wedding wouldn't be too different from his birthday, a quiet dinner that was maybe a little fancier than usual with his faceless bride and her equally faceless family members. Nichkhun never seemed to like the grandiose ceremonies he dragged himself to, so Jinyoung had been quite sure there would be none of that. And the few modest grandmothers who'd invited Jinyoung along to these things - to match to their granddaughters, he later realized - impressed on him that weddings were family affairs, with few outsiders to be had.

It seemed even more likely when the whole bonding situation landed on his shoulders. Jinyoung, after all, only had Nichkhun. Jaebeom was the divine will of the forest given physical form. He didn't exactly have anybody either.

Thus, Jinyoung could only stare blankly at his hyung when they had to quickly renovate the house as people began to arrive a full month before the wedding date.

Somewhere around the 4th level of floors, a sudden bloom of energy, threaded with traces of his mentor’s magic, ruffled his train and blew it crooked. Jaebeom rolled with the backlash, bouncing off an opposite wall and launch himself towards the source of the energy. 

When they bounded through the double wooden doors, they were met with four grown men spread all over the walls, eyeing each other down. In the middle of the room, Nichkhun was stabilizing a swirling orb of golden energy with one hand.

“Ready? Last round! Winner gets the train.” the sorcerer announced. “ROSHAMBO!”

Nichkhun quickly withdrew his hands, allowing the ball of energy to spin wildly out of control and start leaking razor-like magic threads.

Jinyoung’s blood froze in his veins. He didn’t know as much about dimensional space as Nichkhun, but even he could feel how thin the fabric reality was stretching just to accommodate their cottage. If anything ruptured the bubble with them all in it; Jinyoung wasn’t sure there’d be enough of him left over for a proper funeral, much less a wedding!

But before he could do anything about it, spiritual energy flared to life from each of the four directions. In an instant they surrounded and pinned down the destructive ball of energy, transfixing it in place and neutralizing it almost instantly, continuing instead to a stalemate of fighting energies. In a split second, two energy signatures dissolved and two of the four magicians yelped as they were hit with recoil, one going through the wall, and the other getting flattened against the ceiling.

The two remaining pulled their magic back and clashed again, once, twice, thrice, until one more crumpled and fell into a table pushed against the wall. The last one upright roared with laughter, hopping down to where Nichkhun still sat rolling his eyes. 

One of the first two - the one who had to peel himself out of the ceiling - dropped to the floor with a scowl. “You scammed me!”

The winner shook his head with a smirk. “Nah hyung, you scammed yourself.”

The one still on the table let out a noise that was half laugh, half groan. “Leave it Taec, you were had. Maybe if you took that plush toy off your head, you’d have seen it coming. But Chansung here has something else to answer for.”

Taecyeon puffed up like an offended bird, his jaw tensed beneath the intact demon lion’s head he wore as a helmet. The dissenters quickly descended into loud incoherent bickering with the victor, eventually involving Nichkhun between them all. 

Jinyoung hoped he didn’t have to wait for this to end. Nichkhun’s friends could argue back and forth for hours, sometimes _days_ . The row they had when they’d first arrived lasted almost a _week_.,

“Oh, Jinyoung-ah, did you need something?” 

The last magician, having picked himself out of the wall, hovered over to the bridal pair, with an easy almost lazy smile on his face, reaching out to pet Jaebeom between the ears. The divine wolf grumbled in the back of his throat but tolerated the contact.

“Master Wooyoung,” Jinyoung dipped his head in a cursory bow, “it’s nothing. I just need to inform hyung that Lady Sunmi’s handmaidens have arrived, and I don’t know if we have room for them.”

“Oh, that might be…” The older magician hummed, looking back at his bickering friends with a wilted looking expression. He instead reached into the earthy red and burnt orange sleeves of his robes and pulled out a scroll. Slicing the tip of his finger with a nail, he began to quickly scribble a series of elaborate runes onto the thick paper. “Tell you what, I’ll draw you all the seals myself. Go grab one of your brothers to help you. We’ll just add on another tier. Give it all to them.”

“Master, are you sure?” Jinyoung frowned. “Space is getting pretty thin already.”

The older man stared flatly down at him until Jinyoung shrank awkwardly into Jaebeom’s fur. “Ah, sorry Jinyoung-ah. I’m just surprised. You can feel that? At your age?”

Well, _that_ was uncalled for. Jinyoung might not be a full-fledged sorcerer yet, but he wasn’t a _child._ Something must have shown on his face though because Wooyoung snorted and pat him on the head too.

“Alright, alright, I didn’t mean it like that. Don’t pout, your Wooyoung-hyung is weak to cute things.” Wooyoung cooed and Jinyoung only frowned harder. “You’re worrying too much, the fabric of reality is more resilient than you think, we could stretch it ten times this size and it’d still hold out. The only question is power, and your little fiance can take care of that.”

With another pat on each of their heads, Wooyoung sent them both back out the door to look for Jinyoung’s disciple brothers.

Yup, he had _disciple brothers_ -  has apparently had them for most of his life. 

Luckily, they were easily found, both engrossed in a much more sane game of _baduk_ over a board of polished paulownia with beautiful jewel-toned pieces. Or it looked sane until Jinyoung got close enough to feel the suffocating magic field that hovered between them.

Jinyoung sighed again and stood to the side waiting for them to finish their game. It wasn’t long before the magic deepened one last time, as the eldest brother slid one last stone into place. With a groan, the other slumped over the board whining about his loss. The magic field between them dissipated so fast, Jinyoung’s robes were blown astray by the energy displacement.

The eldest laughed at his opponent but didn’t reply, instead, addressing the youngest in the room. “Thanks for waiting, Jinyoungie. What’s up?”

Tuan Yien was the first of his disciple brothers to arrive, resplendent in a single outer robe that shimmered in every possible shade of gold, interspersed with bursts of white embroidery. Above his pure black under robes, the fabric seemed to glow. On his shoulder perched a black feathered phoenix with a golden crest and gold-tipped wings and tail. Like Jinyoung, he’d also obtained a divine beast.

...Except Yien had done it on purpose. Tracking an injured beast back to its own territory to finish it off, and then staying around the area for decades until the natural energies had condensed enough to birth a new one.

 _Decades_. Decades meant so little to a three-hundred-year-old half-demon. 

Beside him Jia Er was no slouch either. Though Nichkhun rolled his eyes and dodged Jia Er’s tackle hug when he arrived, he’d still told Jinyoung to watch himself around his new brother. 

Jia Er was a child of fortune. Wherever he went, luck itself warped around him and could end up messing with other’s fortunes if he wasn’t careful. In exchange, Jia Er had learned to manipulate and weaponize that flow, redirect it and rewrite destiny itself. In a way, the bright red peonies splashed all over his robes likely served more as warnings for his enemies than they did as blessings.

It’s no wonder Nichkhun’s apprentices were afforded the respect that they had. 

As if he felt the cold sweat beading on Jinyoung’s palms, Jaebeom rumbled softly at the back of his throat, sending comforting vibrations through his chest into Jinyoung’s body like a gentle massage. It snapped the young apprentice back to reality. Jinyoung straightened up before bowing to each of his brothers. 

“Yien-ge. Er-gege,” Jinyoung took care to use the foreign honorific his two disciple brothers preferred. Yien smiled back at him. “Master Wooyoung instructed this younger brother to expand the cottage another tier, and to ask you for help.” 

“Aw Ge-ge, he’s so polite.” Jia Er squealed from where he was still dramatically slumped over the board. Before Jinyoung saw how, Jia Er had materialized beside Jinyoung, crushing the younger boy in a hold that felt less like a brotherly hug and more like being clamped between a pair of iron braces. “Don’t be such a stranger Nyoungie. Ge-ge has seen you in swaddling clothes!”

Which was a dirty, dirty _lie_ seeing as Jinyoung hadn’t been adopted as a baby and hadn’t any idea he even _had_ brothers up until a fortnight ago

Beneath them, Jaebeom growled and swatted at Jiar Er with his long tail. 

“Sorry sorry, dearest brother-in-law! Forgive me!” 

It didn’t save him from a faceful of silver-grey fur.

The bottommost floor was still technically the kitchen, but it wasn’t hard to spot the distorted bits of stretched space. They still felt off to Jinyoung, the fighting magics of nature and Nichkhun’s power pulsing through the many intricate arrays fizzled around him, feeling almost claustrophobic.

With a sigh, Jinyoung followed Yien’s directions and copied the design for Wooyoung’s talisman on the walls, sticking it to the center of the array for good measure. Lightly pricking his finger with a brooch pin, he squeezed a single drop of blood onto the talisman. On the far wall, Yien had drawn a similar array wholesale and once he’d also dropped some blood on it, the ink they’d used began to glow. Unbidden, the edges of the arrays began to draw themselves, extending along both sides of the wall and along the floor. The further they grew, the more magic was sucked from Jinyoung’s channels and the more the familiar old nausea set in.

Trying to keep breakfast inside him, Jinyoung jolted out of his reverie when Jaebeom twisted back to lick him gently across the face. The wolf’s much cooler energies began to seep into his body making up for what he’d loss. It didn’t solve the problem, but he wrapped his arms around Jaebeom neck and cuddled closer to that pool of refreshing energy, finally able to ignore the way his meridians were being pulled on.

His disciple brothers laughed softly behind him.

In no mood to be polite, Jinyoung turned just enough to free one eye from Jaebeom’s fluffy fur for glaring. 

They laughed _harder_.

“Don’t be cranky,” Yien said, walking over to ruffle Jinyoung’s hair. Beneath his fingers, Jinyoung can feel the current of magic moving almost violently inside Yien’s body. He too was pulling necessary magic from his beast, the brisk, sharp winds of lofty mountain tops laced inside his own magic. “Your meridians aren’t all the way open yet; that’s all. It’s cute...natural.”

“As opposed to everything we know and love,” Jiar Er said with a wink before getting thwapped by a couple of golden tail feathers.

“Ge-ge! This is where Jinyoungie’s learned it from isn’t it?” The red-clad man whined.

Once the lines covered the entire bottom floor, Yien tested it with his foot and then poked Jinyoung up from where he was still curled up in Jaebeom’s fur. Each picking a good spot on the floor, the three brothers pushed against it. Though the space resisted at first, it eventually stretched under Jinyoung’s hand like stiff dough. Several handspans at a time, they stretched the floor down, looking up once every so often to check the others’ progress and trying to keep the tension even so a weakened corner didn’t escape the spell and snap back into place. Once they’d stretched about equal the amount of the other floors, Jinyoung startled - and would have tipped over without Jaebeom’s tail wrapped around him - as Yien’s magic, laced with mountain air and birdsong, flooded the air around him. 

His divine phoenix has spread its feathers, unfurled, the black revealed a whole new layer of golden pin feathers that glimmered with their own light. He’d moved the center of the room and his magic filled every inch of it. The reality they’d pushed away roared against him for reversing its order, but Yien barely bat an eyelash. With a wave of his elegant hands, his magic sank all at once and forced all the imperfections of the floor even. 

“Aaaaah, you and your divine beasts,” Jiar Er sulked as he flounced down on Jaebeom’s back beside Jinyoung. The divine wolf snarled and tried to attack Jia Er with his tail again, always missing by a hair’s breadth as Jia Er flailed around. “It’s cheating I tell you. I’d have to study half a millennia to gather that much on short notice, but look at how much he just _has_. I want iiiiiiit!”

“Go fuck one yourself then,” Yien said without a trace of sympathy as he pet stroked his preening phoenix. “Good boy, Youngjae.”

“GEGE! THERE ARE _CHILDREN_ IN HERE!”

“Jinyoung is getting _married_ .” Yien braced his hands on his hips, face quirking into the most unimpressed expression Jinyoung has ever seen in his life. “He’s already _bonded_ . How did you even think they _got_ that way? Right Jinyoungie?”

“...um,” Jinyoung shrank back into Jaebeom’s fluffy fur as if the divine wolf could save him from his brothers’ gaping faces.

“ _Oh_. Oh, Jinyoungie…” 

“Wait...wait but you’re _getting married_ to him.”

“ExcusemeIneedtogofetchthehandmaidenssorry!” Jinyoung babbled, feeling his face heat up. Jaebeom responded to his first tug and bound up and out of earshot of the two baffled sorcerers.

Luckily Sunmi’s handmaidens hadn’t been offended by the wait if they even noticed it - Jinyoung had come back to the two boys still arguing while the one girl had draped herself across her cloud, legs folded elegantly as she watched. Neither were they offended by the utter lack of decoration or furniture in the newly created floor space, instead happily filling the entire floor with even more multicolored clouds and shimmering light.

Once they seemed to be settled, Jinyoung immediately pulled Jaebeom back to their newly created room - something that Jinyoung had taken advantage and badgered his mentor for when Nichkhun first started stretching the cottage. Taking off only enough layers not to impede him, Jinyoung threw himself down on the sheets and burrowed in. A swoosh of cool clear magic ruffled his hair and Jaebeom - once more in pretty pretty human form - tugged the sheets aside just enough to join him. Even his this form though, he nuzzled their faces together tracing the curves of Jinyoung’s cheek and hairline with his nose. 

“Jaebeomie…” Even wrapped up away in his blankets, Jinyoung’s voice came out like a mouse, just big enough for the two of them. “Can you really bond with...you know...with sex?”

Jaebeom hummed in the back of his throat and stopped nuzzling, although he made up for it by cradling Jinyoung between his arms. 

“Is easier. Bond need...to be close.” He said after a while. “Energy go to magic...hole?”

“Meridians.”

“Ah, meridian. Meridian take energy, make bond. Sex...kissing, touching...make meridian very open, very soft.” Jaebeom small hands came to cup Jinyoung’s face, thumbs pressing gently at the two meridian points at his temple. “Easy to push in and make or feel bond. When relax is easy too, but sex is much easier.” 

“But we didn’t do anything like that.” Jinyoung persisted, clinging to consciousness even though the thumbs gently massaging his meridians lulled him further and further into a cloudy bliss.

“We are different. Jinyoung is connect to Jinhae,” Jaebeom muttered quietly, pressing their foreheads together. “Jaebeom _is_ Jinhae. Is so easy. Is so, _so_ easy with Jinyoung.”

Jinyoung shivered and pulled his future mate closer. “So you can still feel it? Even if we don’t?”

“Can feel,” Jaebeom nodded, burying his face into Jinyoung’s throat. His wet mouth opening breathing in that special mating scent only he could detect. “So easy.”

But Jinyoung didn’t feel it. Not really, not any more than he already had before this mythical bond settled in beneath his skin. 

“Would you feel it more if we did?”

Jaebeom grinds to a stuttering halt in his arms, since the silence, Jinyoung can hear his heartbeat growing more and more erratic in his chest.  

“How much, Jaebeomie?”

Jaebeom didn’t reply, his grip tightening around Jinyoung even more. His breath came out ragged, with a rumble behind it that sent chills down Jinyoung’s spine. It was all the answer Jinyoung needed.

“We can...Jaebeomie,” he whispered into Jaebeom’s fluffy pelt and soft hair, “You...you’ll be my husband very soon, so....I...I want to feel it as well.”

“Jinyoung,” the divine wolf growled into his throat, “Jinyoungie...Jinyoung.”

The ghost of a tongue flickered against the sensitive skin of his throat. The sudden wetness dragged a gasp from Jinyoung’s lips and his fingers curled into Jaebeom’s silky hair, nails digging into the divine wolf’s scalp. With a groan, Jaebeom tugged at the collar of Jinyoung’s robes, pulling them open until he had enough room to press the full flat of his tongue against his mate’s pulse. It sent a strange new rush of heat down Jinyoung’s spine and hid body went limp under Jaebeom’s touch with a soft mew. 

All the while, Jaebeom’s lovely refreshing presence invaded his meridians and the contrast of heat and cool trapping him in a dizzying cycle of temperature shifts until Jinyoung was no longer sure which way was up.

The door slams open.

“JINYOUNGIE DO YOU KNOW HOW TO HAVE SEX WITH BOYS?!”

Jaebeom shifted into wolf form above him before Jinyoung could understand what was going on. Immediately, he’s covered in silver fur and over his prone form Jaebeom _snarls,_  sharp and deadly.

Jinyoung quickly pulls his collar closed and popped his head out to see Jia Er’s half horrified half enraged face frowning hard, completely unafraid by the divine wolf. He looked seconds away from snarling _himself._  

Jinyoung squeaked because he didn’t have enough air in his lungs to scream. He could have cried from the shame.

“Ga-ga, stop.” Yien’s eerily unflappable voice floated over them. The eldest brother glided in carrying an offended looking gold and black otter nestled in his arms and swatted Jia Er on the shoulder and Jaebeom on the nose. “You too. Stop making this into a big deal.”

“GEGE! How can you be so calm when our Jinyoungie’s innocence is on the line like this!” And Jia Er should remember that they were all _inside_ _with him_ , and not halfway around the world. Yien rolled his eyes and Jinyoung had to agree.

“He’s 17 already,” Yien said, “kids marry as young as 15 sometimes. Jinyoungie’s literally a week away from his wedding. You’re getting too worked up about this. Look you’re making him cry.”

Jinyoung slapped his sleeves against his cheeks only to find them wet. The tears hadn’t been as metaphorical as he’d thought. 

Jia Er’s face crumpled and now he was the one with full crocodile tears in his eyes, and Jinyoung has long lost track of what _the fuck_ was happening anymore.

“H-how.” Jinyoung whimpered more than said.

“Youngjae was playing in the river.” Yien jiggled the little otter in the crook of his elbow whose cute little squashed face managed to look both very contrite and yet thoroughly offended at the same time. “He had a little shock when the forest began reacting. Anyways, like I said. It’s no big deal. We just need to know if Nichkhun-hyung’s, told you anything about...well...all this stuff.”

“I...I don’t think so.” And if possible Yien looked even more tired than he had when he first walked in.

“I thought not. Come on, get up both of you.” Yien sighed a sigh so deep Jinyoung could see his chest move beneath his robes. “You too Gaga, We have _a lot_ to cover.” 

 

Omake:

 

“Alright...that’s about all I can think of,” Yien gently brushed the chalk dust from his hands, the only one in the room whose face isn’t burning. “Any questions?” 

Jinyoung buried his face in his hands and shivered, unable to look at the drawn diagrams any longer because no he didn’t. Yien had been far _far_ too thorough for that. Gods Jinyoung hadn’t even know half those positions were _possible_ , much less how to make them safe.

“Not just about this, you know. You can ask me anything else too.” Gods, his brother had the thick skin to _chuckle_. 

But that was as good an escape as any.

“Yien-ge,” he mumbled, gesturing at Yien’s divine beast who was still in otter form, “Youngjae...he changes animals?”

“Yeah, doesn’t Jaebeom? Divine beasts take the form of the animals they encounter in their territory. They get bored staying in one shape all the time.” Yien looked at him blankly for a second. “Youngjae tends to switch up between a handful that he really likes, but I guess Jaebeom prefers his wolf body.” 

Oh, well that made a lot of sense. If Jaebeom could even forge a human form out of himself, there was no reason to think he could do it for any other animal. The wolf form was very well suited for the hilly Jinhae Forest.

“What animal was Youngjae at first?” Youngjae seemed to enjoy being petted, his chubby little face scrunching up as he leaned into Jinyoung’s nails for head scratches. On his other side, Jaebeom, grudgingly in human form, pouted and tugged at Jinyoung’s sleeve until the young sorcerer rolled his eyes and leaned against his fiance.  

“Human.” Yien laughed, the grin on his face was absolutely evil. “I’d been tracking him for years at that point, I wasn’t going to let him see anything else before me. And actually, that reminds me. They _will_ change on you. Youngjae likes to do it spontaneously to cause trouble. For Jaebeom...well just to be safe, here’s how canines work...”

Jinyoung’s head dropped into his hands. He didn’t even WANT to know anymore. Who cares? He’ll happily spend the rest of his life as pure and virginal as a plum blossom!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And where Mark is an LA gangster and has no shame in showing it
> 
> even in medieval Asia


	6. The Sliding Scale of Mortality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I lied, it's not smut yet
> 
> Where "mortal" is relative term

“Head Disciple Jinyoung should know that this poor weaver tried his very best. I _fought_ for him,” the handmaiden said grimly with his hand on the door handle, “the nails came out. It was a bloodbath. Trust me, you didn’t want to be there. If you hate your robes, it’s all Suzy-noona’s fault.”

The senior handmaiden glared at him sharply from her cloud where she sat primly next to a half-asleep Jinyoung. The Heavenly Palace apparently had no concept of night and day, and only a vague idea that time passes at all. As such, they had seen nothing wrong with dragging him out of his comfortable fluffy fur cocoon in the dead of night and dragging him down 5 stories to their workroom.

“He is to be married BamBam,” Suzy almost snapped, surprising Jinyoung who had never seen her anything but polite and only mildly interested in anything at any given time. “It must be _violet_.”

“Noona, just look at him, head to toe in pink. Even his under robes are pink. He clearly knows what he looks good in, why should we spoil a perfectly good color match.”

“We are not like humans who disregard symbols and meanings. One is born in red, marries in _violet,_ and dies in white.”

“Pink is close enough to violet.”

“It is _not_ , and therefore we will _not_ replace it.”

Jinyoung blinked at them, trying to hold back a yawn. 

Honestly, Jinyoung rarely gave a second thought to what colors he wore. Rather it was Nichkun who - after he’d gotten to dress Jinyoung up _once_ \- had procured chest upon chest overflowing with delicate pink silk out of _nowhere_ with shades ranging from the palest blush to the richest maroon, all of it conveniently sized for his bewildered apprentice. 

Despite their squabbles, Jinyoung wasn’t going to _waste_ so expensive a gift from the man who raised him, and somewhere in the rustling, the much more sensible neutral green or beige robes he was accustomed to had disappeared. Jinyoung was left to deal with a flowery train twice or thrice his height in length _daily_ and had to quickly learn how to float in such a way that would display whatever extravagant design embroidered all over it.

He mourned the days when the most cumbersome his clothes got was maybe a loose hem dangling over his feet until he was too annoyed to put off fixing it. _Oh, how times change_.

But BamBam tried, he told himself. BamBam tried. He took the boy’s hand between his and gave it a couple of quiet pats. Maybe when he’s more awake he’ll feel the appreciation he’s pretending, but for now, it’s enough that BamBam stopped pouting and they could _get on with whatever this is_.

The door opens and Jinyoung reared back, his vision taken over by light spots.

“Oh sorry!” Both handmaidens yelped immediately throwing their sleeves up to shield his face. 

Behind the door, the room was lit up like the midday sun. And Jinyoung’s eyes suffered for it. Even under three people’s worth of sleeves - probably something like twelve layers of fabric in addition to his own - he had to blink away tears from his burning eyes.

“We really did forget,” Suzy murmured with a sheepish smile, “Head Disciple Jinyoung is ordinarily so splendid, it is difficult to remember that he is still mortal. These careless handmaidens beg his forgiveness.”  

“It...is no offense.” At least not compared to dragging him up at ridiculous hours to show off a wedding gown. 

He thinks enviously of Jaebeom still curled up on his bed, probably sulking, _lucky cretin_. 

“May this Jinyoung ask the honored handmaidens why the room need be lighted so?” Jinyoung tried to keep the creeping annoyance out of his voice.

“What do you mean, Head Disciple Jinyoung?”

Blinking Jinyoung finally noticed that there were no light sources on the walls, or even floating midair. The glowing clouds the handmaidens floated upon in fact looked dim in comparison, themselves casting pale shadows on the walls. Slowly peeking out from behind his companion’s sleeves, Jinyoung came to the horrifying realization that, it was indeed his wedding robes were themselves lighting the room like a miniature sun.

His jaw fell open.

Beside him, both the handmaidens smiled smugly, probably taking his flabbergasted face as a good thing. 

“It’s…”

“Handwoven from rays of light as they scatter across the clouds at different points of the day,” Suzy said proudly, “Such is why work has been going so slowly, as the necessary threads can only be spun at certain times. We’ve but a few moments to gather the richest colors. The embroidered jacket is pure sunlight, unscattered.”

“It was Yugyeom’s idea,” BamBam whispered in Jinyoung’s ear. “Usually it’s easier since colors stay _far_ longer on the clouds than the pure light. So we can get as much as we want, but you know that always end up looking a little paler in the final product. So genius boy decides to instead spin everything in a tiny tiny window of time. He’s eating his words weaving your veil right now.”

He supposes they aren’t wrong.

The robes are gorgeous, the last vestiges of sunset before the sky falls to night, immortalized in floating celestial silk. The main body of the robes was a shade of impossibly vibrant plum violet that shimmered with the subtlest hints of early stars, layered on top of each other, the fabric took on a depth of color impossible to achieve by mortal hands, and if the heavens themselves hung on the display rack. They needed no embroidery, indeed looking all the more divine in their simplicity. They were accompanied by many transparent shrouds in shades of pink and lavender floating in place around where Jinyoung’s arms and shoulders would be, and a short jacket of soft rose with a high collar. The jacket was where the majority of the bright bright light was shedding from, it’s elaborate collar and sleeves embroidered with white-hot designs so intense Jinyoung couldn’t make them out even as he squinted.

“Thinking of it, perhaps moonlight would have been a better option,” BamBam admitted, “we considered it but we thought the subtle gold cast of the sun looked a little better.”

“ _You_ thought sunlight looked better,” Suzy said, “ _I_ thought they were equally as lovely and did not care to contain you. If Head Disciple Jinyoung wishes, we can easily replace the embroidery. It would be a pity if the bride could not look at his own wedding robes.”

Jinyoung nodded wearily. It was for the best. As terrible as it was for the industrious handmaidens to have to undo their work, Jinyoung would like to have some form of eyesight after this debacle was over. He didn’t want to think of what kind of insult it would be if he left off a piece of their painstaking work. 

“Very well,” Suzy sighed, “BamBam, tell Yugyeom to stop his veil. We will have to switch to moonlight. The optimal silver has passed for now. That can’t be helped but…”

“Please don’t worry about optimal colors,” Jinyoung said quickly. “The honored handmaidens should not have to trouble themselves. Any sort is quite fine.”

Suzy and BamBam both looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “The colors would shift.”

“It....it is a good thing for the colors to shift. You have seen my betrothed whose fur too shifts with the moon as he moves.” Of at least Jinyoung certainly hoped that was what was happening when Jaebeom beautiful pelt rippled. “Or you could gather it from the clouds as Handmaiden BamBam-”

“No!” Suzy’s eyes gleamed frighteningly even in the starkly lit workspace. “No, of course, Head Disciple Jinyoung is absolutely correct! Of course, the moonlight must shimmer and shift as he walks like the moon maiden dancing across the sky to her beloved. Oh Disciple Jinyoung, how astute you are, as expected of the Tale Spinner Nichkhun’s personal student.”

“Well choke me with a lace bodkin,” BamBam laughed, “is Head Disciple Jinyoung sure he’s still mortal? We wouldn’t mind taking you back to weaving hall if you were willing to cough up a couple more ideas like that.”

“You flatter this Jinyoung overmuch.” Jinyoung smiled thinly at them both. “If that is all...”

“No, no, pardon our transgressions, but you must remain!” For a hand so thin, Suzy’s had an iron grip that Jinyoung could in no way break out of, “it is your vision that we must bring to life, we dare not spoil it with careless work. BamBam, fetch Yugyeom, we shall spin until the moon grows wane!”

Jinyoung cursed inside his head and gave up on getting to bed before the rooster crowed. 

Instead, he tried to find the most pleasant bit of tile roof he could to hunker down cursing the thinness of his sleeping robes, the night that was too chilly for late summer, and his own stupidity in provoking the crazy handmaidens. If he had kept his mouth shut, he could have been back in bed, curled up inside Jaebeom’s nice fluffy tail by now.

Luckily he didn’t even have time to get properly cold before a thick pelt wrapped itself around his shoulders. A strong warm arm curled around the swell of his hip and pressed him up against a firm chest while a familiar nose nuzzled into his hair. 

“Still work?” the divine wolf asked his voice pleasantly sleep-hoarse in Jinyoung’s ear.

“No, their work,” Jinyoung grumbled and pointed to where the handmaidens and one assistant were setting up what looked like a giant wooden spindle. “They need me to approve ‘my vision,’ or something.”

Jaebeom laughed softly, his chest rumbling with the sound.

“Please forgive,” his fingers crept up to massage his sweet refreshing energy into the meridians at Jinyoung’s temple. “Not always understand sleep. Not mortal.”

“ _You’re_ immortal,” Jinyoung huffed without much heat, too busy cuddling deeper into Jaebeom’s arms, “ _You_ sleep.”

“Jaebeom sleep with Jinyoung.”

That...that was something Jinyoung didn’t have the presence of mind to dissect while on less than three hours of sleep, but Jaebeom was going to get an earful tomorrow. 

For now, he settled back into the warmth of his future husband, examining the shapes of the celestial weaver’s magics as sizzled in the air. Warm and comfortable, Jinyoung could appreciate the complexity of their magic.

Then they began to _dance_.

And Jinyoung lost his breath. 

He was not sure what he had been expecting, the idea of catching and spinning light, meaning little in his mind. But it was a beautiful dance of fluttering hands that teased and caught brilliant white out of the very air itself. Passing the light between them and winding it around their bodies, they pulled it into threads so thin, they could not be seen if they did not give of their cool silver glow. It reminded Jinyoung less of the village spinners and their humming wheels and more of the quick-eyed artisans stretching the glittering candy into soft sugar fluff that never fail to make Jinyoung’s mouth water. _Oh, he could almost taste it on his tongue_. 

Once the threads were thin enough, Suzy’s patient liquid movements wound it around the giant spindle. Building it up and up until Jinyoung could see a thin layer of silver thread built upon the solid oak. 

Somehow Jinyoung managed to keep his eyes open until the last slivers of watery moon faded away and the Sun crept up on his gentle wife’s heels. The handmaidens showed him the fruits of their labor with proud faces and eyes that shimmered as much as the thread they wove. 

The moon thread was cool and smooth to the touch, like semi-solid water that had been drawn impossibly thin. It’s white was much gentler than the sun thread, and the cool cast of it was wonderful on his weary eyes. The more Jinyoung looked, the more colors he could see inside the white, hints of blues and pinks and golds. The strand of the thread also changed between sections, some glittered sharply, other glowed softly beneath his hand so that the entire spool seemed to be moving on the spindle.

“It’s beautiful.” He breathed. 

Suzy smiled at him. “Isn’t it? Perhaps when Disciple Jinyoung can part from his betrothed, he might come down to watch his veil be woven.”

Jinyoung doesn’t remember if he smiled back before passing out, but they weren’t offended when he woke up snuggled into the curl of Jaebeom’s fluffy wolf body the next afternoon, so he can’t have done too badly. 

He even found time to wander down to their floor on occasion to watch the elaborate dances they performed on their giant looms.

 Each large detailed embroidery piece began large enough to hang across his arms before being shrunken down to tiny delicate designs to be sewn on the collar or sleeves of his gown. His veil was even more impressive. Each embroidery piece took a half day’s worth of the young assistant’s dancing to produce. There was a full dozen of them. Each more elaborate than the last to account for all of Jinyoung’s star readings. Once the embroidery was done, the veil had to be woven in one single swath. Made entirely of moonlight, the poor assistant had to start completely over after the change in plans. There were times where a guilty Jinyoung offered to hold the threads in place for him, just so the poor boy could take a swig of peach blossom nectar or wolf down a mouthful of bamboo hearts.

He silently vowed that he would let Assistant Yugyeom have anything he damn well wanted at the wedding banquet.   

That was not to say Jinyoung didn’t have plenty to do: checking on a room they kept frigidly cold so the little orbs of moon dew didn’t disappear before the wedding day, help Nichkhun and Master Junho distill vats and vats of celestial wines, daily fortune readings with Jia Er, meditations with Yien to take the edge off his constantly draining resources and testing the bounds of his bond with his divine beast, rehearsal after rehearsal after rehearsal until Nichkhun was satisfied with the ceremony.

So it was strange with the day before the ceremony, when that was all suddenly cut off. By now the little cottage had grown into an expansive underground palace, teeming with guests, very few of whom were human, most of whom Jinyoung has long, long lost count of. Even before he’d gone to bed, Jia Er, lead him out of the observatory and frog marched him to bed. When he’d woken, he’d been scolded out of the distillation room by Master Junho. After breakfast, Master Minjun stopped him at the door of the dew storage with a pat on the shoulder and a laugh. After a short meditation session, Yien just evaporated, gleefully reassuring Jinyoung that he’ll like whatever wedding gift his freakishly smug disciple brother was planning.

Even _Jaebeom_ was gone.

Jinyoung was left looking at the rest of his day with absolutely nothing to do. He’s never not had chores ever in his working memory. It was _creepy_. 

Jinyoung just ended up wandering into the forest after everyone had chased him - sometimes literally - away from any form of work. Even the handmaidens who’d been more than open to teaching him the barest basics of their craft had not allowed him into their abode. 

Draping his tail out of the way, Jinyoung slumped over on the soft bed of grass beneath his favorite tree - an old dead peach with a hollow that fit exactly one person at its trunk - trusting the arrays sewn into his clothing to keep off the dirt and debris. 

Closing his eyes, he let the breeze ruffle his hair, gentled by the trees around him. In his daze, the wind felt like fingers stroking his head. Beneath him, the earth was pleasant and not overly sun-warmed. If he slowed his breathing and pressed himself as far as he could against the grass, he could hear a soft hum of an ancient lullaby he couldn’t understand. It wraps around him and coddles him, something that was part of Jinhae Forest and yet went so much deeper than that, something that recognized Jinyoung, something that, as a child, had made Jinyoung question if he was human at all.

“I thought I would find you here.”  

Jinyoung blinked awake to see the sun bleeding into oranges and gold on the horizon. Nichkhun smiled down at the young apprentice and, sweeping his own robes out of the way with a spelled gust, flopped down right beside Jinyoung, leaning against the old dead trunk.

“Children always find their way back to comforting places.”

Jinyoung nearly jolted, when Nichkhun ‘s fingers, dry and solid, so unlike the wind before, slowly eased the heavy pins and ornaments out of Jinyoung’s hair, tinkling the little bells and bangles as he pulled on them. Slowly, bit by bit, he unraveled the ribbons braided into Jinyoung’s hair, untangling any leaves or grass he’d gotten into it at his carelessness. Even long after the young disciple’s hair was down, Nichkhun remained, absently combing through the glossy strands with his fingers. Jinyoung shifted closer to his hyung, relishing in the way his mentor’s nails scraped over his tired scalp, strained by the tight knot. 

Beneath him, the earth has petulantly stopped her lullaby.

Jinyoung laughed softly into his sleeves.

“Oh is she sulking again?” Nichkhun huffed but didn’t stop stroking his apprentice’s hair.

“Yes, she really doesn’t like you, hyung.” Jinyoung nonetheless leaned further into his touch. “Hasn’t for many years.”

“Celestials can be such children sometimes.” Nichkhun sighed dramatically. “Well, the old crone can keep sulking. Your first mother entrusted you to me and no amount of humming and hawing on her part will change that.” 

“Yes, hyung.” For a while, they settled down to enjoy the comfortable silence. But something nagged at Jinyoung, between all his work during the previous month, he’d not had much time to think about it, but now, in the calm, it wheedled its way up to the forefront of his mind. “Hyung...what was my birth mother like? No dodging the question this time. I’m about to be married...I’m old enough to know.”

A heavy blanket descended on their silence, not uncomfortable, but foggy, weighted. Finally, Nichkhun scoffed.

“I guess you have a point. Although really, you shouldn’t be getting married of all things,” he grumbled playfully, “you’re still a baby in my eyes. I don’t even remember being this age, but I sure didn’t bond myself to a divine beast this early.”

“So you had one too.”

“...yes, one. Now, do you want to hear about your mother or my bad decisions?” Nichkhun swatted him lightly on the head but went right back to his slow petting afterward. 

“Mercy!” 

Nichkhun swatted him again but nonetheless continued in a much softer tone. “Your mother was very...human. She was so painfully human amongst her disciple brothers, all of them demons or spirits vying for the attentions of our Laozu.”  

“The Ancient Sage.” Jinyoung breathed, “was she one of the three…”

“So you remember your lessons,” Nichkhun flicked his forehead gently, “She wasn’t. It isn’t easy to be a human student of our Laozu and your mother was...not so strong. You learned of the three because they ascended and became gods in their own right. Your mother...chose differently. The fool.”

“Oh” Jinyoung sighed quietly, “I thought maybe that was why…”

“You’re an idiot.” There was a sharpness to Nichkhun’s voice, a strained sound as always happened when Jinyoung asked about his absent mother. His hands grew stilted in Jinyoung’s hair. “If she was going to ascend away from earthly desires, how could she have borne you, a product of those earthly desires? How could she have left you behind?...No, she wanted too much, loved too much and always the wrong people. Of course, she couldn’t ascend.”

“...hyung.” Jinyoung snuggled closer to the older man’s legs, pillowing his head on Nichkhun’s lap and taking Nichkhun’s hands from his hair and holding them in his hands. He would scold himself later. Nichkhun had also chosen to turn away from his divinity, but Jinyoung knew it was a sore spot, a result of his looking after a very young child “I’m...I’m glad you didn’t ascend either.”

For a moment Nichkung didn’t speak, but his grip on Jinyoung’s hand was just a hair too tight.

“Your hyung is just as stupid.” He said finally, but he kept Jinyoung’s hands, kneading them idly between his own. “She loved you very much, your mother. From the first moment she felt the spark of your life, she adored you...and so did the rest. All your hyung used to crowd around her as she sang to you every day, even that layabout, Junho. She swatted them all away, of course, no one was to disturb the baby. Not even your idiot father.”

Jinyoung nodded to show he was listening and readjusted their hands into a more comfortable hold. 

He could never explain why but...the idea of his father wasn’t nearly as impactful, even when he’d thought the Earth Crone was his mother. He had no impression of the man and, under Nichkhun’s guiding hand, having a father hadn’t felt very important. But the woman whose songs even now gentled his dreams...he would have loved to have met her. 

“It broke her heart when she had to give you up.” Nichkhun laughed softly, tone thick with something Jinyoung couldn’t identify. “Your father’s fault. He was good but so, so, abysmally _stupid_ , and your mother stupidly loved him recklessness and all. Celestials, little one - demons and gods both, it doesn’t matter - either would not hesitate to murder a child before it could be born. Their retribution comes first, _always_. They do not care for life nor death. They are immortal; if they once knew these things, have long stopped remembering them.”

Jinyoung hummed in agreement. “Like you don’t remember time?”

Nichkhun’s eyes snapped to him with a hard gaze. Jinyoung smiled and patted his hyung’s hands.

“That’s what happened, isn’t it? To all of you? You can time spells and potions down to the minutes that they require and exactly what day the solstice lands, but you rarely remember my age right. Just a week ago you were grumbling about my getting married at fourteen. I haven’t been fourteen for _years_ .” It was Jinyoung’s turn to laugh. “All the hyung I didn’t know. They _meant_ to come visit. They just _didn’t_...”

Jinyoung had no time to react when he was bodily hauled up into Nichkhun’s strong arms and crushed against his chest. It was messy, there were dozens of layers between and Jinyoung’s were already in disarray from his prior nap. But it was warm and secure and _nice_. 

“Yes little one,” Nichkhun whispered into his hair. “You’re absolutely right. All your terrible terrible hyung always forget, the pathetic lot of them. And now they’re all making up for the lost time they’ve no right to.”

Wordless Jinyoung nodded into his mentor’s chest.

“We tore you from your mother’s womb. You were so small still.” Nichkhun let go only long enough to catch another of his hand cupping it to Jinyoung’s chest. “Your entire body would have fit in this palm, so small it couldn’t tempt a passing soul to stay long enough to turn their noses at it. Like a little kitten.”

The sorcerer laughed again, hollow and panicked, his eyes looking through Jinyoung and past him. 

“We hid you in a peach pit. I’m not sure why. It was what he had at the time, I suppose. They were always around. Your mother never denied a nice ripe peach. Before anything could be done, we spirited you to the one celestial who would protect you. The one celestial that obeys none,” Nichkhun stopped pausing for a breath he didn’t need. “Do you know why The Crone - half-forgotten old bat that she is - is different from other gods?”

“Why?” Jinyoung bit his lip, trying to remember his many theogonies and their relations to each other. Nichkhun smiled weakly when his student remained silent.

“Because she has never ascended to godhood,” his sigh was shaky as it came out, “more than The Three, more than the Enlightened, more even than the Jade Emperor, she simply _is_ . She always _has been_ and always _will be_. No god will rise above her. No demon will sink below her. As long as she favored you, no one could touch you.”

The earth hummed beneath Jinyoung, preening like a like a showy cormorant.

“You’re lucky she likes children.” 

Jinyoung shivered. He had never thought about her like that. How powerful a goddess must be to encompass all of the lands beneath the sky like a baby never quite realizes how tall its mother is when she picks it up.

“But...I am still mortal.”

“Of course you are. You already had a mortal body. All she did was keep you alive when we buried you inside her.” Nichkhun laughed softly at the bewildered boy. “We nourished you who nourished you. All your hyung went out to hunt and gather all number of different magics so we could feed you until you grew, until your little seed split and you became a tree. I still remember when you finally tempted down the softest little soul. It took decades, and even then it was as shy as a newborn kit. It took ages to bond to your body.”

Nichkhun’s hold had relaxed around him and they naturally slumped back against the ancient dry bark, surprisingly soft and pliant despite its lifelessness. 

“I grew like a divine beast,” Jinyoung said softly.

“You are in a way. You fed on Jinhae.” Nichkhun said. “In a way, you’re almost as connected to this forest as your little fiance, and it recognizes you like that. Gods, I should have been more careful, blessed wolf, my ass. Not even the Jade Emperor’s favored pet would have taken such liberty with one of the Crone’s children.”

It’s was Jinyoung’s turn to laugh. “You say that like he’s going to eat me.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. Imagine carefully cultivating a precious fruit only to have it stolen by a wild dog.”

“Hyung!” Jinyoung rolled back over in a huff, not minding where the sorcerer poked him. Any seriousness was over.

“Don’t ‘Hyung’ me, you’re the one that brought the mutt home.” Nichkhun pushed his apprentice over further with the tip of his foot. In a mood to comply, Jinyoung flopped over a second time.

“That ‘mutt’ gave me a _dragon_ as a courting gift.”

“Is that all it takes to buy this child? A dragon? When did this Master raise such a gold digger?”

“Master Nichkhun’s disciple is getting married to _a forest_. He could not possibly be further from anywhere gold might be found.” 

He expected the swat. He didn’t expect the quiet voice after that.

“Your mother is proud of you, you know. Even if she cannot claim you. As are we all.”

Jinyoung quieted down spreading himself over the grass, still warm from soaking in the sun all day.

“Is she going to be there tomorrow?... Even if she can’t tell me?”

Behind him, Nichkhun drew a breath. 

“She will.” He said. “Don’t look for her. For all anyone knows, you are still one of the Crone’s many children… But, you have my word. She will be there.” 

Jinyoung nodded and allowed his mentor to pick him up and dust off any debris that stubbornly clung despite the charmed silk. With a breath, he coaxed a stray air current to his side and stepped off the earth. Together master and disciple flew home through the forest canopy.


	7. In sickness, in health, and in unreasonable family problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherever exists a wedding, exists some uninvited old git determined to ruin it

Jinyoung’s smile was frozen to his face as he tried to maintain a perfect bow while Lady Sunmi gently wound the delicate silver headpiece through his dark hair, shining with all sorts of sweet-smelling oils, potions, and anything else his mad alchemist hyung could think to brush into it. Behind him, Yugyeom was behind him plaiting accent braids into the longer hair that would not be done up into the elaborate headdress, with Suzy swooping in after him and sewing glittering silver beadwork _directly into his hair_.

Were they going to stay after the ceremony to take it out? Tradition or not, Jinyoung wasn’t sure he trusted Jaebeom to sit patiently and pick at however many thousands of little knots it would take to unbind Jinyoung’s hair. His robes were bad enough, the finished garments held together with their own dazzling network of silver cords and pins.

Comparatively, the needle with which BamBam was turning his ear into mincemeat was practically negligible. At least he had the decency to heal Jinyoung’s sore ears after each heavy piecing was set in place.

After what felt like hours, he was allowed to stand up straight again.

For a moment.

Jinyoung was barely given time to pay obeisance to Sunmi and her handmaidens for their aid - Yugyeom having been promoted into apprenticeship when his goddess arrived but hours ago - before Nichkhun came back in carrying an array of multicolored concoctions markedly different from the last one he’d used to “condition” and revitalize his apprentice early this morning. It’d taken till the sun was high just to get Jinyoung into his wedding robes. He’s dressed is the same plum shades as his apprentice, if not nearly so ostentatious, but with the way he frittered back and forth, Jinyoung couldn’t help but think of a fussing mother cat.

He quickly doused Jinyoung’s face in a concoction of softened deer fat and rice bran. The mixture was massaged firmly into Jinyoung’s skin before being carefully scraped off with a flat bamboo tool, and then rubbed in with a scrap of fine cotton to leave the skin just slightly tacky.

On this base Nichkhun painted several layers of thin ivory cream, waiting just a few moments in between each coat. Fine velvety powders stained the young apprentice’s lips and cheeks with warm lush pink that Nichkhun blended out into the smooth skin with a dense rabbit fur puff. Cooler darker pinks lined and deepened his eyes, and the barest touch of charcoal drawn on with the sharpened point of a reed darkened his lashes until his eyes were luminous in comparison.

Moving down Jinyoung’s neck near the collar of his throat, Nichkhun abandoned his dense rabbit puff for a slim reed tipped with a bare few hairs of silky quilin’s mane, the tips delicate and yet firm enough to draw intricate lace-like patterns onto Jinyoung’s skin, allowing secret glimpses of his youthful flush to show just past his collar.

Jinyoung couldn’t help the shiver that ran down his spine when he saw himself in full in the mirror.

He had always preferred to look clean and neat, it was too much trouble to bother about more, and far too embarrassing to do less. Pretty trinkets, ribbons and tassels, those were for other people. Even in his new pink dominated wardrobe, the novelty quickly wore off.

But like this... _like this_...

Gone was the fresh faced young man with his baskets of medicine, replaced instead by a delicate aloof beauty with elegant features brought out by the colors of wedding raiment and ever so subtly seductive make-up. It was almost a shame to hide it beneath his shimmering embroidered veil, except that Jinyoung had tried the veil, as wispy and delicate as incense smoke, on before as seen it drape him in a dreamy haze that lent playful coquettishness to his blurred features.

“Don't cry, I swear, if you ruin my hard work...” Nichkhun hissed at him - unfair when the sorcerer himself had become suspiciously glassy eyed.

Jinyping was saved by the handmaidens combing over him one last time for anything out of place before they lowered his beautiful veil and ushered him out the door.

The minute he left the room, Master Chansung materialized behind him, not so much gathering the longs ends of his elaborate train as fanning it out to display the full splendor of his guiding stars. He walked between his disciple brothers each bearing silk covered trays of immortal peaches and heavenly chestnuts. His garland was borne by a bright faced young man whose black and gold feathered cloak and identified him as the only other divine beast in the party. With a sharp whistling laugh the divine phoenix tossed a fistful of flower petals and silver paper confetti over his head that seemed virtually endless, and yet did not settle in his robes or muss his hair, slipping cleanly off until he was beneath the large wedding parasol.

The parasol itself was a vision on its own, it's rich purple silk vivid and striking between the wealth of living flowers that dripped from its canopy. The white gauze screens were so delicate they were hardly visible and yet shielded him from the sun and wind, creating a space of perfect calm to shelter the wedding party. Master Wooyoung bore it's heavy wooden shaft with a grin as if it weighed nothing.

Beneath all that, Jaebeom came for him. Out of the woods, in rich indigo silks and silver fur, Jaebeom appeared with a tell-tale bounce in his stride. In his hands he clutched a silk pillow on which rested the traditional love birds, only these were neither gold nor silver statues, but intricate little ornaments somehow molded seamlessly from polished abalone shell that fluttered their delicate little wings in a tiny recreation of a mating dance around each other. Master Taecyeon - near unrecognizable without his lion helmet and warrior’s garb - and Master Minjun served as his wedding party, bearing silk covered trays heavy with rice and celestial wine respectively.

These they presented to Nichkhun who had placed himself in their way. The sorcerer made a big show of considering the gifts - that he had helped prepare just days ago - before finally accepting them with a turn of his nose and letting the groom's party move forwards.

The masters came to stand side by side by his disciple brothers with their gifts. Jaebeom jons him beneath the parasol and takes his hands.

They had no priest. Instead, the smiling Goddess of Matrimony, a beautiful young woman whose only constant features were her red bridal make-up and the endless layers of violet robes that cosetted her form, directed them through their bows with one pale hand.

Once they were done, she put their hands together and placed her own atop them. “Speak now your eternal vows.”

This, they hadn’t practiced. It was bad luck to speak vows into being and disregard them. But Jinyoung had mused and mulled over his words since last spring. He repeated them every night in the depths of his mind.

Through their laced fingers, Jinyoung could feel his to-be husband’s hand tremble. He sure from the shifting of Jaebeom’s own train that the divine wolf’s long tail was beating against the grass. So he opened his mouth first.

“This lowly apprentice had never expected such fortune to befall him.” Privately he was glad for the thin layer of make-up concealing the way his faced heated up. “In a way, it was too fast, only a year and a half since this one has learned my lord’s honorable name. It feels beyond possibility.”

Jaebeom’s fingers dug into his hand, his eyes shining but wavering. Jinyoung couldn’t help laughing softly at the sight.

“But that isn’t true is it? Because unbeknownst to me, my lord has helped to paint me such a childhood that even were this Jinyoung born heartless he could not find a single fault. Though it may be as a grain of sand in the eye of an immortal, it is more than enough to fill this human heart. And so this one vows, so long as that heart still beats, so long as this lowly human lives, to belong to my husband. To care for him and obey him as any sworn spouse should. To take his burdens, his joys, his heart breaks as my own.” Jinyoung’s voice grew steadier with each vow spoken, the weight of them settling firmly in his chest and their joined hands. “...and to always cherish him as I cherish those beautiful memories he has gifted me.”

Jinyoung could feel the magic sizzle inside him. Across from him, Jaebeom’s eyes glowed - visible even through the lace in the delicate moon thread veil - as his fingers kneaded at Jinyoung’s hand.

He was the most beautiful thing Jinyoung had ever seen.

Jaebeom took an audible breath.

“Jaebeom is Jinhae. It is...his territory...himself.” Jaebeom’s words were slow and deliberate, each carefully sculpted on his tongue.

“But...Jinyoung is also Jinhae. Jinyoung is also home. And Jaebeom...” For a moment Jinyoung is lost in his voice, the rustle of wind-stirred leaves and the murmur of bubbling stream lacing soft sweet comfort into the deep rumbling voice.

“Jaebeom protects home... _always_.”

And something slides into place, something so wonderful, and inevitable and right.

From her own body the shrouded goddess drew violet threads that wrapped around their clasped fingers each layer of fine thread sinking into their hands as soon as it touched living skin. 108 cycles. 108 blessings. 108 promises for the future.

When the final knot disappeared in their joined hands, Jaebeom lifts the delicate veil and they fall into each other.

In that moment more than any other, Jinyoung could feel all the ways Jaebeom’s human form was made for him, how all he had to do was step forward and their arms and lips and bodies slot perfectly together.

Well almost.

Jaebeom still kissed tongue first.

Overcome by giggles, Jinyoung hid them both in his veil and let his new husband ruin his makeup. He’ll have to ask for more of that lip powder before the banquet.

Pulling away so they can begin the procession back to the groom’s house - or in this case, an old stone shrine that stood deep inside Jinhae forest - Jinyoung yelped as Jaebeom gathered him up and lifted him clear off the ground.

“Jaebeomie!”

“Wearing gift robes,” the divine wolf said with a wide grin, “cannot turn wolf for now. Begging patience.”

“We’re not even at the threshold of the shrine yet.” Jinyoung grumbled without heat. The frown on his face kept breaking into a matching smile.

“Shrine is not home,” Jaebeom said smugly, “Forest is. Carry across _both_ thresholds.”

“You...”

They were interrupted by a grunt from Wooyoung, hoisting the giant parasol upright. “As adorable as this all is, we should probably get going before Nichkhun-hyung decides to widow Jinyoungie here.”

Nichkhun granted them all a wide smile that could cut stone.

Looking too smug for man dancing on the edge of death by hyung-in-law, Jaebeom leapt into the air fanning Jinyoung’s elaborate train behind them. Cursing, Chansung let go of the magical fabric and hurried to catch up to them, his heels clicking together as he ascended. Jaebeom snickered as he looped around lazily waiting for the rest of the party to join them mid-air.

Jinyoung quietly resigned himself to the fact that his new husband hadn’t the faintest sense of self preservation.

The wedding parade glided across the sky, painting the midday sky so purple owls and nightingales began to coo and prepare too early for their hunt.

The old stone shrine crouched in the middle of Jinhae forest darning moss into it’s eaves. It must have been splendid once. Old foundations and cornerstones whisper of a grand multi-building structure, the house of some long forgotten god who may have himself forgotten about his old rest home. All that was left was weather-worn granite, a crumbling pagoda over a statue whose face had grown dull and featureless with time. In the faceless god’s lap was enshrined a single ivory claw.

“Was Jaebeom,” the divine wolf had said as they swept the stone steps together.”Long time ago. Don’t remember anymore.”

But it was the closest thing Jaebeom had to a ‘home’ and so it was where their procession would end.

Jinyoung himself was no stranger to the old shrine. As a child, he’d been packed in a sling on Nichkhun’s back while the sorcerer scrapped down bundles and bundles of blessed moss, for his medicines. As a student, the shrine had shielded him from many an herb gathering trip cut short by summer rain. Even now, as he came wrapped up in Jaebeom’s arms, it seemed only fitting that the gentle faceless god was there to welcome them.

He did not expect the others.

Scarce had their wedding procession descended when the sky split open and lit on fire. From the split three stars appeared in the sky, more brilliant than even the sun. Slowly they descended from the sky until it was evident that they weren’t stars at all but three shining elders, impossibly radiant, and with wisdom etched into every line of their features.

The lively wedding procession fell into dead silence.

Jinyoung could feel his husband’s grasp tighten around him despite the many layers of robes.

“Exalted masters,” Minjun said at last, handing his tray of gifts off to an empty-handed guest as he strode forth to stand between the descended gods and the newly wedded couple. He bowed low, getting onto his knees and pressing his forehead to the grass. “These lowly revelers are honored of your presence. We had not hoped to host even one of the Three, _much less all of you_ , at a mere _apprentice’s_ wedding ceremony.”

It took Jinyoung a minute to register the words, to wrap around the idea that the Three Divine Teachers had just descended on his wedding. He clutched at Jaebeom, body automatically slowing his breathing as the force of their holy energies weighed down the air around him. However, even as his vision was blurred by the sheer amount of light the Three shed, Jinyoung could see one of them level him with a disconcerting leer.

“Indeed, young Minjun,” one of the others said with a barely noticeable huff, “this teacher wonders as well why my brothers have seen it so fit to concern themselves over these...trivialities.”

“Brother Lee’s presence is not necessary.” The staring one said curtly only to be cut off.

“And neither is Brother Yang’s,” the third divine teacher said, “Young Nichkhun and his brothers are part of this teacher’s faction and only of mild interest as the little disciple shares this one’s birth name.”

And there was something in the way Yang turned his gaze away to not-quite glare at his divine brother that made Jinyoung burrow further into Jaebeom’s shoulder. It was cold, in the manner of sunlight glinting off frost, and Jinyoung wanted no part of it.

As if feeling Jinyoung’s distress, Jaebeom’s chest begins to rumble with the beginnings of a deep growl.

“Brother Park is being rather cold. This teacher has also had good relations to his students in the past, is that not so?” Yang’s voice was low but sharp. “There was a _certain_ female disciple a while back…”

“And his lordship certainly can see, my disciple sister is not to be found.” Nichkhun’s voice was pleasant even as it snapped across the air. “And she has not been available to us for many years. This Nichkhun is _only_ here for his apprentice.”

A silence settles in as Nichkhun is cut off by Yang floating past him without a glance right up to Jinyoung. With an ascended being suddenly within an arm’s length of his face, it was all Jinyoung could do to tug on Jaebeom’s sleeve until the divine wolf let him down. Fortunately, Nichkhun had taught him well, and Jinyoung managed to keep his panic bottled and roiling inside his stomach, unseen.

“And this is the young apprentice, is it not?” Yang hummed, “this teached congratulates you on finding a face so fair...and so _familiar_.”

A glowing finger came up to hover by Jinyoung’s cheek. He stopped breathing.

Two things happened simultaneously.

Jaebeom snarled audibly, tail bristling until it peaked out of his robes. A burst of brisk wind curled around the newlyweds that smelled thickly with warm cedarwood and early autumn leaves. From where he was behind Jaebeom, the scent soaked into Jinyoung’s head and chest, fortifying every breath he took.

But beneath their feet, something else rumbled to life, something much deeper, much older. It purred like a lazy cat, only the vibrations were so dense Jinyoung felt it down to his bones.

Yang immediately retracted his intrusive finger, his radiant face twisted into a scowl.

Enough was enough.

“This Jinyoung is truly humbled by his lordship’s praise,” he bowed low but steady, “but this one is a discarded child, raised by the earth mother, and his face was likely shaped to her pleasure. If it is passing familiar...perhaps they are merely pleasing features.”

Park burst into a happy chortle that rolled like drumbeat. “Well said little disciple! As expected of my namesake! This old teacher does find that beauties of a certain calibre tend to resemble each other in countenance. Do you not agree Brother Lee?”

If Lee were not one of the Three Divine Teachers, Jinyoung might have accused him of rolling his eyes. “This teacher supposes it so, were one to be as observant of pretty things as brothers Park and Yang. This teacher personally finds mortal features impermanent and unmemorable.”

“Of course, of course, but it is in poor taste to deny beauty whilst it passes the eye, is it not?”

The tension breaks as suddenly as if it had never been there in the first place, and between the ridicule of his compatriots, Yang turned away from Jinyoung with huff leaving the air cold and unforgiving in his wake.

“Very well, it seems as if this teacher was mistaken. As Brother Lee says, human features are impermanent and ephemeral.”

Whatever had placated him, Yang settled back among his brothers and said little more.

The hyungs worked quickly, procuring the best of the gifts to present to the Three while they guided the party to begin the banquet. But the wedding procession had changed beneath their presence. The ceremony was solemn, the bows were rigid, and Jinyoung barely tasted any of the decadent food that passed his lips. Every time he turned around, he wore Yang’s stoic gaze heavily on his shoulders. Not even Jaebeom’s obvious attempts to block him from sight - shifting several times between them and the ascended immortal and then finally draping his tail like another thick furry layer of Jinyoung’s wedding robes - could alleviate the sensation.

The only entity who seemed to remotely enjoy himself was Park, who floated about as dignified as he could manage chatting up his charges, though all of Jinyoung’s hyungs answered only as much to be poite, not a word more.

For an immortal sage unconcerned with all earthly affairs, Lee lost patience first. Nichkhun barely had time to lead Jaebeom and Jinyoung through the ceremonial farewell before he began to rise. With him Park abandoned his mildly successful chattering and accepted his own farewell graciously. Yang was again the last to rise, eyes still fixed on Jinyoung, saying nothing, merely nodding once his farewell ceremony was down to it’s last bow.

As one, the Three disappeared back into the heavens, and the wedding party gave a collective sigh.

The banquet fell into a much more relaxed atmosphere. Somewhere, instruments were procured and charmed with spells and geases to play. As if it was greeting them, sunset painted the sky in their celebration colors of pinks and violets whilst Sunmi and her handmaidens used the opportunity to hang violet off of every surface. Hundreds of hands and paws and wingtips ushered the newly weds onto the old shrine courtyard that served as their dance floor.

And Jinyoung finally relaxed.

Nestled inside Jaebeom’s arms, he isn’t even truly dancing, just swaying and skipping to the music while the crowd steered them about. After the fiasco of the three, every face seemed determined to smile, and even the ones Jinyoung didn’t know seemed unrestrained and affectionate.

He might have lost himself in them if the rise and fall of his husband’s breath and the smell of cedarwood hadn’t been pressed against him.

It’s hard to determine when night fell. When one’s robes and hanging are made of light, darkness never come close. What he realizes instead, is that he hasn’t seen Nichkhun at all since he’d begun dancing. It feels odd, a peculiar wrongness that Jinyoung hasn’t felt since he was a child wandering out too late after curfew.

He tapped Jaebeom on the arm and gazed into the divine wolf’s eyes, and his mate just.... _understood_ in some wild, unfettered way, and opened his arms to let Jinyoung go. With a grin, the divine beast swirled away with the revelers on the dance floor.

“Now where is the star of the party going this early?” He ran into Junho first, hovering awkwardly at the edges of the banquet where the tree line began. The master took his hand and spun him around a few circles, each going one step back the way he came. It didn’t stop the awkward feeling. “The night is still young little one, and we have much to make of you.”

“Master Junho…”

  
“Junho-hyung, Jinyoungie, we talked about this.”

“Where’s Nichkhun-hyung?”

Junho sighed and spun him around one more time before letting him go. “I don’t know if he wants you to find him right now, Jinyoungie. Today is not a day for worries. Not for you.”

“Nichkhun-hyung always says one worry spent today is one less worry spent tomorrow.”

  
Nevertheless Jinyoung indulged the older sorcerer with a bow to end their facsimile of dance. Across from him Junh smiled softly, with a fond gaze that didn’t feel deserved.

“You’re becoming too much like your hyung, little one. Take care that your hair doesn’t turn gray before you find immortality.” With one last pat on the head, Junho stepped aside, and let Jinyoung breach the treeline.

Nichkhun wasn’t far off, and if Jinyoung had been paying attention he might have noticed the subtle array that had been hastily set up just off their shrine. It was a simple four point formation, something Jinyoung could have drawn in his sleep by now, but did well to dampen noise and spiritual energy in any enclosed area. There had been no need to even mark off an area, as the piled stones of what might have been an old shed or sheep pen fenced off a perfect little nook for the spell.

The entrance was marked by a smeared thumbprint of dried brown blood.

Jinyoung’s meridians were immediately assaulted when he entered the array.

His hyung paced a rut into the tender moss, tension rolling off him in curls of golden energy so volatile, it was visible through his skin. He spoke in the ancient language, a winding almost serpentine tongue Jinyoung only heard when his hyung worked up past a such rare level of incandescent fury that the softer SIlla language couldn’t bear the fire of it. Chansung and Wooyoung sat with him, each sponging up the excess magic before it blew the array wide open.

“...Hyung?”

A storm of ambient energy whirled on him, Nichkhun nearly unrecognizable at its eye. For a second, Jinyoung’s own magical system balked at him, and his nerves alighted screaming threat! Threat! _Threat_!

  
The aura around Nichkhun broke almost instantaneously, rushing back into him and leaving his skin stained with gold. He swept up to Jinyoung in a cloud of billowing plum colored silk lighter than air. The array rippled around them, but remained in place.

“I...I was wondering where hyung...” Jinyoung trailed off weakly.

“Aish,” Nichkhun cursed without heat, switching back to the softer language he shared with Jinyoung, “what is that lay-about Junho doing? Can’t he even entertain a child for a few minutes?”

With a shaky laugh, Jinyoung folded his hands demurely into his sleeves. “This disciple may have overstepped. He will have to apologize to Master Junho.”

“He should apologize to his hyung, didn’t I tell you not to ruin my hard work? Look your lips have faded.” He whipped a thumb-sized packet from his sash and began to dab it’s contents back onto Jinyoung’s lips with a pinky. His hand was steady but rigid. Holding his breath, Jinyoung submitted to his fussing mentor. As Nichkhun worked on his disciple’s face, his hands relaxed, rigid touches slowly becoming the delicate hands he had just that morning.

Jinyoung waited until, the sorcerer was embroiled in the cosmetics before speaking again. “Hyung...was Lord Yang looking for me?”

The hands halted on his face before slowly lowering away. When Jinyoung opened his eyes, all three sorcerers had grim smiles, like scars across their face.

“Well…” Chansung said from his perch, “not _before_. The old lecher is impossible once he finds a pretty face. Hopefully, he won’t do anything too bad as long as you’re attached to the Crone, but who knows? If old Park would put some modicum of effort into protecting those tithed to him it wouldn’t be a problem, but he doesn’t like stirring conflict among the brothers or something like that.”

“It’s why Taecyeon refuses to have anything to do with him anymore,” Wooyoung explained, “Not after...well, we’ll tell you what later. The point in he’ll ‘help’ insofar as it costs him nothing, apparently that doesn’t extend to keeping that brother away from nosing into our business.”

A quiet dread took root in the part of Jinyoung who still reeled from all the grandeur of his new life, a part that never got used to silk robes and flippant magic-use.

That part was immediately swatted on the head.

“Whatever you’re thinking, it’s going to stop,” Nichkhun grumbled as he tried to fix the ornament that he had knocked loose himself, “As if I was going to let that mutt get his paws on you without so much as a teacup to tip. That decrepit old wind bag can throw as many tantrums as he wants on his little rain cloud. See if I care.”

Jinyoung leaned into the attentions, Nichkhun’s blustering settling familiar and safe around him. He risked another question.

“And he’s why my mother didn’t come around...right? He’s looking for her isn’t he?”

He was swatted on the head again.

“Stupid child,when did you hear your hyung say that she wasn’t here? Are you calling me a liar?” Despite the pout in his voice, Jinyoung could also hear the sharp smugness lacing through each word. “I only said that she _wasn’t to be found_.”

Suddenly back in high spirits, Nichkhun finish patting all his hair accessories back into place and dragging Jinyoung back to the party. He even went as far as to neatly deposit his apprentice back into the waiting groom’s arms and tail.

Jinyoung finished that night with a very different kind of dread that had nothing to do with ascended old perverts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not as much Jeebs in this chapter.
> 
> negatively inspired by YG being such a shit that he perved on an idol trainee at his company when she was a literal child and then ruined her career to then later marry her. Jesus that shit still makes me wanna vomit.


End file.
